Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing Reserves

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 31 Dec 2011, at 12:51 PM, Thomas Lofft wrote:

> Hopefully, there may be a standard in planning reserve requirement 
> requirements in a cohousing association that would be different from other 
> condo or TH associations. This all depends upon the amount of personal care 
> that is given to the daily use and cleaning of the facilities. 

Thanks for bringing this into the discussion. This is why a site visit is 
important — not just to catch things that are deteriorating prematurely but to 
see the quality of maintenance AND the higher quality materials and 
construction that many cohousing invested in their infrastructure. There is 
also the issue of green materials, also common in cohousing. Some have turned 
out to be as long lasting as expected and others not. The Means guides which 
are commonly used for calculating standard costs, would not reflect this.

This is the link to "Means", the 2011 edition on construction costs. There are 
also other more specialized titles. Large libraries will probably have this on 
their shelves — even if it is an older edition:

<http://www.amazon.com/RSMeans-Building-Construction-Cost-Data/dp/1936335034/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325360342&sr=1-1>

Our bylaws say that replacements must be of "first class quality," and equal to 
or above initial quality.

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