Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Policies on short-term rentals

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

RoseWind Cohousing , Port Townsend WA, long built, 24 households. 

Two of our homes offer "Air BnB" accomodations, and others might also do so. 
The city regulates the process, which is legal once a person pays for various 
licenses, inspections, etc. Guests are fairly frequent. 

Mostly there have been no problems. Once a host seems to have told guests they 
could go fill buckets with (not very abundant) berry crops in our garden -- 
that raised concern. But mostly I see these visitors as ambassadors, learning 
about our community and telling others, and even future joiners, on some future 
resale: who knows? I'm in the process of creating a handout about the community 
for BnB guests, as sometimes the hosts are not present, or don't have time to 
get into conversations about the  project. 

One highly-valued family here came through years ago in the course of 
cohousing-hopping as a vacation/travel strategy. They were taken by our 
project, and decided to buy in! Could happen again. 

I suppose we should eventually write down some clear expectations for the host 
families, in terms of the garden,  visiting the Common House, or other matters 
that might come up. But so far, it's been fairly low profile. 

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
www.rosewind.org