Re: Affordable Cohousing
From: Diana Carroll (dianaecarrollgmail.com)
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2021 13:43:54 -0700 (PDT)
Diana: What Zev describes is *extremely unusual *and would generally be
illegal. There must be some legal loophole or workaround here related to
the city's affordability program that allows them to screen potential
buyers that way. Even if there is some loophole that allows this not be be
a violation of the equal housing laws, I would not suggest doing this --
for me, on principle, this is a bad thing. Once you start evaluating people
for "fit", you are introducing the sort of subjective judgements that lead
to racism, ableism, etc.  As much as in your heart you may not want to do
this, or be that person, unconscious bias is a thing. I'm honestly shocked
to hear cohousing doing this or endorsing it. :(

diana Carroll
Mosaic Commons, central MA



On Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 4:09 PM Diana Stanley <lusty [at] lusty.org> wrote:

> Zev,
>
> Is this process written into your governing documents? Was it vetted by a
> real estate attorney? Would you be willing to share the parts of your
> governing documents that outline this process? Does it only apply because
> the applicants are buying below-market-rate properties?
>
> My community is currently struggling with what sort of processes we can
> write into our governing documents to achieve exactly the process you
> describe for prospective new members of the community. We don't actually
> deny anyone, however we want to require all of them to go through all the
> steps you describe, so they and we are certain they know what they're
> buying into.
>
> Thanks,
> Diana
> Phoenix Commons, Oakland, CA
>
> > On Apr 19, 2021, at 11:11 AM, Zev Paiss <zevpaiss [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Ann,
> >
> > Buyers pre-qualify with the City affordable housing program and get
> pre-approved by a lender as part of that process.
> >
> > Before COVID our community required that all applicants complete a
> goodness of fit questionnaire, attend an open house, a meal and a business
> meeting so we can meet them and they can see what we are all about. A small
> committee of 4-6 people whittle down the pool of qualified applicants to a
> small handful and then pass them along to the seller to make the final
> decision.
> >
> > Zev Paiss
> > Nomad Community Room Coordinator
> > 1410 Quince Avenue, Boulder CO 80304
> > 720-925-5161
> >
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> >
> >
>
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