Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: managing your major projects

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

Phil’s long email is the best reference. As an architect experienced with 
cohousing, he has described the possibilities very clearly.

The one thing I would add is that it is vitally important to have a community 
person who is the designated contact for consultants and contractors and will 
become well-informed about what is required. We have been fortunate to have 
members who take this task seriously and understand that it is necessary for 
consultant and contractor to do a good job. They need inside information all 
along the way. And communications need to be focused — all the information in 
one place. The contractor and workers need to know who to listen to and who to 
report problems to. And notices if things are not as agreed. This resident 
person is not legally responsible for fixing things — you need a contract — but 
they need to be aware and responsive.

This is the part of the job that many communities think is done by the 
management company or the boss contactor. In 25 years with ~6 management 
companies and many contractors large and small, I can tell you they don’t. No 
one will do this as well as you will. You are on site. They are not and will 
not be. It has to be a huge job for the contractor to be able to afford to have 
an experienced management person onsite.

Also we now prefer companies that have employees on salary full time, not 
contractors or subcontractors who pick up workers from street corners for each 
job. Full-time workers are more experienced and better trained. If the company 
has them, it is more likely to be a solid company that doesn’t have trouble 
finding work.

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



> On Aug 1, 2024, at 6:52 PM, Muriel Kranowski <murielk [at] vt.edu> wrote:
> 
> This came up during our current discussions about our updating our Capital
> Reserves plan, namely, how will we manage big items that are coming up in
> the next few years? The biggest one will be re-doing all of our asphalt
> roadways and pedways, and then the CH will be ready for major re-roofing.
> We don't know if we'll have in-house (ie, volunteer) project management
> expertise available to us as we did for some large-scale projects in the
> past.
> 
> How do other cohousing communities handle the management side of your
> capital maintenance projects?
>    Muriel at Shadowlake Village
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
> 
> 
>