Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: HOA/CoHousing Balance

[Neil Planchon (neil]

<Cindy Harris> is the author of the message below. It was posted by Neil from 
the Cohousing-L management team cohousing-l-owner [at] cohousing.org

Gentle Reminder to all subscribers: When replying to a post, please delete the 
quoted digest and restore the subject line. Following those steps will ensure 
your message is automatically posted rather than held in moderation. Thank 
you.☮️ Neil

-=-=-

I'm a member of the Rachel Carson EcoVillage, a new cohousing community just 
getting ready to break ground outside of Pittsburgh, PA. This was a question I 
asked during our Sociocracy class when we were reviewing the RCE Community 
Governance Agreement. Our community is committed to governing via Sociocracy, 
but (as in most states) Pennsylvania requires us to be a condo association with 
a board and officers etc. How, I wondered, would we be able to avoid conflicts 
between the condo association board and the idea that Sociocratic groups would 
make all the decisions? The answer turned out to be rather brilliant. The way 
our condo association is established, the board has exactly 3 members, 
identified at the end of the year: the Facilitator of the Coordinating Group, 
the Legal and Finance Planning Group Accountig Manager, and the scribe of one 
of the other planning groups. Those three meet once per year, and have limited 
authority, namely:

To affirm the annual operating budget consented to by LFPG
To affirm the incoming officers (already consented by their individual groups)
To affirm all significant actions taken by the Planning Groups over the course 
of the previous year
To affirm any changes to the condo association bylaws consented to by the 
appropriate planning group.
To affirm insurance policies and tax filings.

That's it. The condo association meetings will be done via consent agendas, so 
there's really no discussion involved, just approvals. There are no elections 
of board members involved, and I imagine that those board members will change 
over fairly randomly as the various groups turn over their leadership positions 
at least twice per year (some do it three times a year) and not all at the same 
time.

This seems to satisfy both our commitment to Sociocracy and also Pennsylvania 
legal requirements for condo associations.

Hope that helps!

Cindy Harris
Rachel Carson EcoVillage
Pittsburgh, PA