Presented by Daniel Miller (NASCO Staff) & Emily Ng (UHAB)
Co-ops can live in a grey area between residential and commercial, between formal and flexible, and between the collective and the individual. This can be a powerful advantage if your coop wants to negotiate the nest lease for a property - but your model might be unfamiliar to a landlord. These resources are meant to help you learn how to lower your lease payments, win more autonomy for your coop, and set yourself up for growth in the future.
Session materials from "Implementing Intentional Affordability," which was led by Jeff Bessmer (Santa Barbara Student Housing Co-op) at NASCO Institute 2013.
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A video by the Sustainable Economies Law Center. Created and narrated by Janelle Orsi.
This video describes how housing might be owned in a more economically sustainable future, and explains how California's Assembly Bill 1024 (Torres) can remove legal barriers to housing cooperatives in our communities. Learn more at http://www.theselc.org/AB1024.
These resources were contributed by Attorney David "Rosebud" Sparer as a resource for housing co-op organizers looking to incorporate as a non-profit or a cooperative.
This resource includes several templates for cooperative business plans from actual housing cooperatives in North America. Other references provided are a blueprint for the development process, of which the business plan is a part, and a cooperative business plan presentation given at the 2009 NASCO Institute.
What is a Nonprofit Corporation?
Not-For-Profit: Pros and Cons
Nonprofit Corporation FAQ's
These sample bylaw can give you an idea of some simple boilerplate language for incorporating your coop. Of course, a coop should get these bylaws looked at before submitting them, but these should give you a good idea of what you may want to do, and let you change things where you need to do so in order to make these match your needs.
