Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: fees for new members

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

Accidentally sent before completing!

> I'm part of Village Hill Co-housing. We are a new community in Northampton, 
> MA and are seeking information on what initial fees new members pay as they 
> join and what these might cover, e.g. common house furniture, kitchen 
> equipment, landscaping, etc.

I'm not clear just what situation is being described in this post. I'll respond 
as a long-built community, of the sort called lot-development, which means buy 
in does not include your house, which you pay for yourself, either having it 
built, or buying on resale a home someone else had built.

Other than the members' housing, one has to fund a development budget for 
things like land, infrastructure, permits, professionals, common amentities 
such as a commonhouse, playground, gardens or whatever.  Presumably this also 
covers the basic furnishings and equipment for the common holdings.

Once development is done, ongoing assessments, annual dues if you will, fund 
operating expenses, reserve accrual for eventual repair and replacement of 
common holdings, and any additional expenses the group agrees to.

Prior to having actual lots to sell (when we still had to finish paying for the 
land, and redesigning it into a Planned Unit Development) we had an initial 
buy-in of $10,000 which was the beginning of funding our development budget, 
credited to one's eventual lot purchase. This gave one rights to decision 
making, as well as lot choice, once the lots were available for purchase.

Now, it's all resales, and there is no joining fee for those. It just 
establishes membership, and thus is part of the annual assessment 
responsibility.

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA
www.rosewind.org