Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: CoHousing HOA DUES: How does your community decide how/what goes into yours?

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

Our system at Shadowlake Village is a combination of required and voluntary
amounts. We first agree on next year's required-items budget -- things our
HOA absolutely has to budget for. There's very little discussion of this
part of our budget; the Finance Committee explains it and we usually agree
on it right away. That total is divided by the number of households no
matter their size or composition, and is owed by all households. We call
that the fixed budget.

Then there is the optional part of our budget for everything else, the fun
things, the things that make us cohousing, and we might discuss this to
some extent, maybe reduce or even remove some items. We call this the
pledge budget because it's paid for by pledges whose amounts are voluntary,
based on your own calculation of how much of the community's resources your
household uses plus what you can afford. Better off households (I assume)
pledge more than their exactly equal share, less-well-off ones pay less
right down to $0. Only the Finance Committee knows what each household is
pledging.

If the total pledged doesn't come up to the pledge budget, we do a
combination of asking if people can pledge any more and, after that,
trimming the pledge budget to meet the amount pledged. I only recall having
to trim the pledge budget once. Usually the initial amount pledged is
sufficient, or if not, a 2nd round of pledges brings in enough. If more is
pledged than is needed, the FC computes how to reduce all the pledges so
there is no excess.

On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 4:54 PM Ann Lehman <ann [at] zimmerman-lehman.com> 
wrote:

> PDX Commons (Portland, OR Senior CoHousing) is revisiting how we decide
> what goes into our HOA dues.  We are asking how others make this
> determination, what are some of the major decisions (by individuals, sq ft,
> units, kids, access, affordability, maintenance vs fun ect). Also and/or
> other dues you have that might not be HOA but help pay for overall
> expenses.
>
> Also I'm sure I'm not the first to ask this question so if there are past
> discussions/research and you can send to the right location I can review
> those inquiries.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> *Ann Lehman, she/her
> **Zimmerman Lehman
> Board Governance Specialist
> **https://zimmerman-lehman.com/ <https://zimmerman-lehman.com/>
> **510.755.5701*
>
> *Yoga Instructor
> Slow Yoga for Savvy Bodies
> **https://zimmerman-lehman.com/slowyoga.htm
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