Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: work-or-pay system - legalities? general advice?

[Richart Keller (richart.keller]

Its important to keep in mind the reason for the work requirement...i.e.
that working together on community (and individual) projects is central to
building the social capital which is essential for successful cohousing
communities.  As is accomodating the needs of residents who are truly unable
to participate. 


Richart Keller, AICP
120 Pulpit Hill Road #25
Amherst, MA 01002
413-835-0011
401 486-2677 (cell)


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sharon Villines [mailto:sharon [at] sharonvillines.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 3:32 PM
To: Cohousing-L
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ work-or-pay system - legalities? general advice?




On 19 Apr 2011, at 1:19 PM, R Philip Dowds wrote:

> Anticipating contingencies is a critical component
> of all planning and forecasting efforts.  Of necessity, contingencies 
> are hypothetical; were they not, they'd be actualities.

True. However, if you look at the hypotheticals that argue against mandatory
workshare - play or pay - they are always of the poor lowly paid, overworked
single parent who can't pay and will be further discriminated against by the
rich, well-paid handsome couple who can just buy themselves out of more work
and go on vacation. 

While it is still hard, evidenced by the fact that we are still having this
discussion, to write the policy at all, one can write for the group as it
exists now and change it when the situation above arises. That avoids the
hypotheticals and gives you objections you can resolve, or have a good
chance of resolving, one way or another. 

In our case, for such a system to be mandatory, we would have to exempt at
least two people. In these two instances, both work, one far more than could
be expected. They are just opposed for emotional reasons - "homes shouldn't
work on a play or pay basis."

Exceptions can also be fair resolutions if everyone agrees to them. We
recently, after 10 years, passed a pet policy banning additional outdoor
cats by exempting the ones we had already. It was the only way and everyone
was reasonably comfortable with that solution.

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




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