Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: The Future of Cohousing

[Naomi Anderegg (naomi_anderegg]

Hm. . . could you require that rental units either be owned by residents 
(living 
in separate dwellings within the community) or by the nonprofit group (to which 
you pay your condo fees and whatnot)? This eliminates the possibility of having 
distant non-resident landlords--either "the group" is the landlord and it's 
some 
member's duty to take care of the money around that OR a couple of individuals 
in the community decide that they would like to invest further in the community 
by owning and managing rentals there? And also, could issues be divided up into 
ones that only owners have a say-so in and separate ones that everyone has a 
say-so in? It seems like there are a lot of management decisions that wouldn't 
effect the value of the properties and that everyone could participate in. But 
that there are others that would effect the value of the properties, and that 
probably only individuals with a financial investment should really be part of. 


Thoughts?

Naomi




________________________________
From: Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Sun, February 6, 2011 12:46:09 PM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ The Future of Cohousing



On 6 Feb 2011, at 1:23 PM, Zev Paiss wrote:

> • Resident management

> In this list, there is not one peep about ownership structure or cost  
> issues.

The problem with absentee owners and owners subject to different financial 
risks 
than renters, affects resident management. How you get around this I think is 
the issue. 


We have two non-resident owners who became non-resident owners shortly after 
one 
of them moved in — and we discovered that there were two owners, not just a 
cosigner of the loan — and then the one moved out. It has been over three years 
now that we have been in this position. They have been relatively responsible 
and responsive and there have been few problems. But I am always aware that 
they 
could object to any of our budget decisions and stop us from moving forward on 
a 
number of issues. Many people living here now have never met them and most 
don't 
even remember what the one who lived here looks like. I don't know if anyone 
would recognize the other one.

With this we are making consensus decisions. It could easily affect resident 
management. 


Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org




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