A hacker housing co-op?

[Robert Morris]

Hi,

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 06:40:44PM +0100, Aden wrote:
> People are always looking for places to move to, and every attempt
> I've made to get a hacker house share has failed, so the best way is
> to take over an existing house share by stealth... So thought I'd post
> this here, go ahead and flame me if you like.

How about a hacker housing co-op?


Robert

[Robert Morris]

Hi,

On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 11:19:39AM -0700, ad...@aden.org.uk wrote:
> Sound like an interesting idea, I've got no idea how housing co-ops work,
> do banks lend money to housing co-ops these days, or does everyone living
> there have to pay a share of the place?

The vast majority of housing co-ops in the UK are run on a not-for-profit
(ie rental only) basis, though either approach is possible, and a few do
have buy-in and sell provisions.

A housing co-op is a legal entity that owns or in some cases leases
property, the tenants of whom reciprocally have voting rights in the co-op.
But it also very usefully provides a structure that, when used properly,
provides some degree of protection against a "bad egg" member not playing
ball and ruining the typical informal house-share arrangements.

By the way, I'm a member of a housing co-op in NE London and I've often
thought that a bunch of hackers should do a hacker housing co-op project
(it's as much as I can do to persuade the members of my co-op to use a wiki
and not send MS Word attachments by reply-to-all email!).


Robert

[Martin (Crypt)]

I may be looking for a new place next month, would definately be an interesting idea.  I know a few ppl that have done similar will ask for advice

On Oct 20, 2012 7:19 PM, "ad...@aden.org.uk" <ad...@aden.org.uk> wrote:

[Billy]

I've got access to three buildings, two in Leyton, and one in
Stratford.

The manager of the estate management company was interested in leasing
all three buildings, when at the time i wanted just the one flat. I
told him that i didn't feel comfortable taking on all three on my own.
With help it would be a different story...

It'll need to be approached in a reasonably professional manner for
them to take it seriously.

If anyone is interested in setting up a housing co-op, shout here.

On 20 Oct, 19:46, "Martin (Crypt)" <crysi...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I may be looking for a new place next month, would definately be an
> interesting idea.  I know a few ppl that have done similar will ask for
> advice

[Francis Davey]

Le samedi 20 octobre 2012 19:19:39 UTC+1, ad...@aden.org.uk a écrit :

Sound like an interesting idea, I've got no idea how housing co-ops work, do banks lend money to housing co-ops these days, or does everyone living there have to pay a share of the place?
 

There's a lot of diversity in the sector. Historically many were started with grants. They vary from being essentially private, to having all their places nominated by local authorities. 

They can be a very useful and flexible mechanism, though there's presumably a lot of experience in their internal politics that I'm not familiar with. Living co-operatively with others is not necessarily simple. But if you are a member of London Hackspace you know all about that.

If anyone was setting one of these up for hackers, I'd be happy to look over the tenancy agreement that you intend to use. While my current hat is really "tech. lawyer", I used to do a lot of housing work and ended up with a weird specialism in co-ops and housing co-ops that still seems to be with me. There are a few - in some cases recent - wrinkles that have come up with some co-ops, so its worth taking a little legal advice. 

Francis

[Martin (Crypt)]

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Hash: SHA1

Cool thanks Francis.

I'm really up for setting this up, although as I said, gunna be out of
the country until middle of next month. If anyone wants to do
anything before then, I'm on email and will help however I can. If
you guys can wait a month, then I'll happily work with you to set it
up when I get back.

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[Eugene Nadyrshin]

I'm strangely intrigued by the idea!

There are summarised steps guide here:
http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/publicdownloads/how2housingco-opstepbystep.pdf

And here:
http://www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide/howtosetupacoop.htm

Count me in
Mentar

[Billy]

Francis: Would you be up for talking to http://www.oneclickorgs.com/
about housing co-op's? One of the organisers is Martin Dittus. While
i've been able to help, what they need is someone who can produce
things that are watertight from a legal standpoint...

Mentar: Radical Routes is an excellent source of advice. :D I
already had http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/publicdownloads/
bookmarked... :))

I'll chase up on the timescale for when the buildings i know of, can
be available. That way, we can get an idea of the lead time we'll
have, to get the legal structure up and running. Also see if i can get
a copy of the last surveyor's report.

They may not be the ideal places to live, but they'll be pretty much
the same as a private let anywhere else in London. It'll at least get
us a revenue stream up and running.

I'll admit, though, I've only seen one of the buildings. It's where i
currently rent. Two flats above a shop, both two bedrooms. If
possible, i'll arrange a site visit to see the other two.

One idea that would suit the longer-term, make it a child-friendly
housing co-op. Otherwise anyone deciding to hatch podlings will have
to move out...

On 21 Oct, 12:04, Eugene Nadyrshin <menta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm strangely intrigued by the idea!
>

> There are summarised steps guide here:http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/publicdownloads/how2housingco-opstepb...

> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla -http://www.enigmail.net/

[Ivan K.]

Well as they just pushed my rent up 150 quid a month i am definitely interested.

-ik

[Martin Dittus]

On 21 Oct 2012, at 17:03, Billy wrote:

>
> Francis: Would you be up for talking to http://www.oneclickorgs.com/
> about housing co-op's? One of the organisers is Martin Dittus. While
> i've been able to help, what they need is someone who can produce

> things that are watertight from a legal standpoint…

Francis is already a long-time advisor for OneClickOrgs, and among other things produced most of our legal documentation.

(He's also an advisor to the London Hackspace. I would take his help in a heartbeat, for any project. He's a busy man but a great and highly skilled legal mind.)

It's also worth mentioning that OneClickOrgs is now working with Cooperatives UK to set up an online tool for cooperatives.

I'll happily refer any hacker co-op groups to the appropriate people if needed.

m.

[Francis Davey]

Le dimanche 21 octobre 2012 17:55:44 UTC+1, Martin Dittus a écrit :

It's also worth mentioning that OneClickOrgs is now working with Cooperatives UK to set up an online tool for cooperatives.

I wasn't sure if this was something I could mention, but now Martin has said so, yes, we are putting together something which should have an acceptable template constitution available from co-ops UK as a sponsoring organisation that is compatible with oneclicks e-governance.

I am of course doing none of the heavy lifting - even if I had time I'm a python man really and the coding is in ruby - so I don't know how that end is going.

Just a quick remark about how co-op constitutions work. To get the goodness out of being a housing co-op you should really incorporate as an Industrial and Provident Society (oooer). They are regulated by the FSA rather than Companies House. Registration of a society increases in price the more variations you have from a model constitution sponsored by a sponsoring organisation (like co-ops). Its different.

The "goodness" above is that a fully mutual housing co-operative avoids a lot of older housing legislation. The theory (not an unreasonable one) is that if all the tenants "own" the landlord then you can rely on tenant democracy to decide on things like eviction and can therefore not bother with lots of modern tenant protection law (assured (whether or not shorthold) tenancies don't exist for fully mutual housing co-ops for instance).

I say "older" because whoever it was in the relevant government department who knew about co-ops must have retired or somehow legislative drafters lost the plot, so some much more recent legislation doesn't have a "but not co-ops" clause.

This created a cunning trap. Many (most?) housing co-ops had a clause in their tenancy agreements saying something along the lines of "we won't evict you unless you are bad". Which expresses what most intended. So in theory the co-op can evict at will, but in practice they won't, they'll go through proper internal processes.

Alas, as any landlord and tenant law geek will tell you, a tenancy *must* have a fixed length. You can't have an indefinitely long tenancy. That's a contradiction in terms. The fixed length can be lots of baby fixed lengths (eg weekly) but you can't have a "forever unless you are bad" type of tenancy. Error. 

But we've been doing property law for centuries, so a long time ago the courts thought of a wheeze to get around this. An indefinite tenancy would be assumed to be a tenancy "for life" (for the life of the tenant). It then has a specific and certain end-point, but obviously you have to wait to see when it will be. So its "fixed" but not certain. Life tenancies were often used anyway because, obviously, you often want to say to someone "you can live here as long as you live" with the understanding you get back the property afterwards.

But in 1925 eager reformers in Parliament were having none of this. They wanted nice, fixed, length tenancies that you could always know, in advance, exactly when they would end. They included in the massive 1925 land law reform a rule that any tenancy for life auto-converted into a 90 year tenancy (which was long for a life in 1925) plus a provision it could be ended early if the tenant died.

In theory that means that any "we won't evict you unless you are bad" tenancy (such as a lot of co-ops had) would be "indefinite" and, under ancient common law rules, be treated as a tenancy for life (rather than just failing) and then auto-converted by the 1925 Act to 90 year tenancies. So, secretly, even though they didn't know it, all those tenants of housing co-ops actually had 90 year tenancies.

So the Supreme Court found a couple of years ago.

So that was very weird, but careful examination showed the weirdness was worse than it seemed because of ignorant 21st century law makers - who probably slept through Land Law at university, assuming they ever attended the lectures. In 2002 they passed legislation containing a bunch of rules to protect long leaseholders. One rule required a landlord to notify a tenant between 30 and 60 days in advance of any rent being due. That works fine for *annual* rents of £1 or a red rose, but does not make sense for a tenant paying weekly on housing benefit. 

Hence: totally ridiculous situation.

Hence therefore my remark that there's are a few things that require care when putting together a housing co-op.

Please forgive my brain dump. I will let you get back to all the wonderful things you do with real objects.

 

I'll happily refer any hacker co-op groups to the appropriate people if needed. 

Excellent. If anyone wants to talk to one-click about it, Martin is your man.

Francis 

[samthetechie]

I am ready to move. Count me in.

Sam

[samthetechie]

Can some folk on this thread help port this conversation over on to the wiki with me? http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Project:HackersCoop

samthetechie

On Saturday, 20 October 2012 19:05:36 UTC+1, Robert Morris wrote:

[Robert Morris]

Hi,

On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 05:21:41AM -0700, samthetechie wrote:
> Can some folk on this thread help port this conversation over on to the
> wiki with me? http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Project:HackersCoop
>

Not sure about getting involved in the wiki but what I could do is come down
to the space, either just socially or as an event, about setting up a
housing co-op. I might be able to get one or two of my fellow co-op members
to come too (they've heard me talk plenty about the LHS!).

Unfortunately (and ironically) I'm away all next week at Co-operatives
United in Manchester, so it would have to be during the week following. Let
me know if this is of interest.

The Saturday of that week (17 November) is our co-op's monthly social, this
is mainly, though not exclusively, a recruiting ground for potential new
members - but sometimes people come along who are interested in setting up
other co-ops too; and are most welcome. There will be a few co-op members
present, sometimes the social is in a pub, sometimes other places.

The details of the November event haven't been finalised but I can circulate
them to anyone who is interested.

Regards,

Robert

[Andy Danger]

I'm also interested! Currently thinking of moving to Glasgow as I can't find anywhere suitable in London. I've got the number of someone who's going to have a house available to rent in Kensall Rise on the 27th. Maybe we could get in there if we have enough people right now? I think there are five bedrooms. Maybe this is a pipe dream.

On Saturday, 20 October 2012 19:05:36 UTC+1, Robert Morris wrote:

[Billy]

No, it's not a pipe-dream, just something that'll probably require
more than three days work to get off the ground.

Get the terms of the let, and shout here. After all, there are other
people on this thread who are currently looking for a place to live.

See what the landlord is like. If they're interested in longer-term
let's/leases, then that's even better. But don't get hung up on a
specific property. There are always going to be other places to rent
in London.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I've created a Doodle poll, to meet up and get this off the ground.

http://www.doodle.com/gcx48s2nivrkagrr

Please, add when you are available.

There are several places we can meet up. The quiet room at the
hackspace is always an option, but if it isn't available, there are
plenty of other places we can go.

[Martin (Crypt)]

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I've only put down dates in nov, as I won't be around, but please
don't let this stop you having a meeting before then, if it helps get
things off the ground. Will be able to help out a lot more when I get
back

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[Robert Morris]

Hi,

Thanks for setting up the Doodle Billy.

I've put my availability in, which unfortunately is rather limited for the
next few weeks. If it turns out we don't do anything until mid-November,
folk might be interested in the following in the meantime:

- Radical Routes gathering in Brighton, Sat 10 - Sun 11 Nov. Introduction to
co-ops session is on Saturday morning, from 10am I think (you can travel
down Friday night and take a sleeping bag if you're not an early starter!)

- The Drive Housing Co-op's monthly social event will be on Sat 17 Nov,
details TBC but most likely will be at a local pub during the afternoon.
Email me off-list if interested and I'll confirm arrangements when known.

Regards,

Robert

[Eugene Nadyrshin]

As it maybe a few weeks yet before we meet I've been thinking if maybe it worthwhile making an quick geo location web app that puts interested people on the map ("privacy" nazis aside). The reason for it is that we'll need to restrict our search for properties that are that works for the majority. The location could be where they work or where they'd like to be. I'm thinking of making a basic algorithm that scores every new property on the location.

Thinking of doing something similar for the new space search as with our current requirements estate agents aren't coming up with anything new, so it would make sense to expand search area.

Cheers
Mentar

[samthetechie]

A collaboratively edited google map would be a good start, if you can you get a list of gmail emails of the people that you want added to the map then I will be happy to sort that out.
Re: space search, Russ has this data and I recall that they used it before in this kind of way as an experiment.

[Senake]

Eugene,

What a great idea for an app - not just for housing associations and hackers - but potentially or any individual or family that is interested in house sharing.

It could even be used to encourage house (and parental task) sharing for families. An app that minimises commuting distance - as well as school run and other regular journeys could potentially have huge environmental and economic benefits if it was taken up widely.




Senake

[Billy]

I remember someone creating a map, pre-internet, that listed areas in
zones that were distances from central london in terms of time-to-get-
there-via-commuter-transport. It's also always been an issue for
residential properties farther out, where you'd have to include the
cost of a yearly season ticket into the house price...

There's only a few of us that's filled in the Doodle, though it's
looking like the weekend 10th/11th of November is most likely.

For anyone that's looking for instant housing, try contacting Andy
Danger, who's found at least one property above. It'll give a nice
"tour bus test", for whether you can share places in the short-to-
medium-term.

On 29 Oct, 12:56, Senake <sena...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Eugene,
>
> What a great idea for an app - not just for housing associations and
> hackers - but potentially or any individual or family that is interested in
> house sharing.
>
> It could even be used to encourage house (and parental task) sharing for
> families. An app that minimises commuting distance - as well as school run
> and other regular journeys could potentially have huge environmental and
> economic benefits if it was taken up widely.
>
> Senake
>

[Jon Fautley]

On 29 October 2012 15:23, Billy <bi...@billycomputersmith.com> wrote:
>
> I remember someone creating a map, pre-internet, that listed areas in
> zones that were distances from central london in terms of time-to-get-
> there-via-commuter-transport. It's also always been an issue for
> residential properties farther out, where you'd have to include the
> cost of a yearly season ticket into the house price...

The new age version of this is http://www.commutefrom.com/ - it's very useful.

[Mark Steward]

Or http://www.mapnificent.net/london/.

Mark

[Francis Davey]

Le lundi 29 octobre 2012 15:37:50 UTC, Mark Steward a écrit :

Or http://www.mapnificent.net/london/.

... and (from a client of mine):

http://mapumental.com/

Of course what you want is a utility function optimisation tool, but that's more tricky to deliver in an easy to use web form.

Francis

[Nin Lil'izi]

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Not sure if entirely relevant.
But the Hamburg Chanology cell does just this. Big central house, with
I think 8 people sharing and 100mbit fibre between them.
Over the past few years its sort of morphed into in the central HQ of
most german anonymous freedom of information campaigning.
When ever I've stopped there its felt more like kipping in some evil
geniuses underground volcano layer with beds in the workspaces for the
amount of tech running. It's industrial style machines and toolsets
short of being a functional hackspace in its own right.

Regards,
/Nin lil'izi/

GPG Fingerprint: C510 909B 811E D6F5 0DFF 5D91 CF03 8FEA FD69 4622

On 20/10/12 19:05, Robert Morris wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 06:40:44PM +0100, Aden wrote:
>> People are always looking for places to move to, and every
>> attempt I've made to get a hacker house share has failed, so the
>> best way is to take over an existing house share by stealth... So
>> thought I'd post this here, go ahead and flame me if you like.
>
> How about a hacker housing co-op?
>
>
> Robert
>
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[Eugene Nadyrshin]

Right, to help things along I've added a wiki page at
http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Housing-co-op
If you are interested please mention yourselves there.

In a quick search I've found this property which is the sortof place I had in mind: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-24467049.html

1. For sale by auction at a guide price of £250 000
   
2. Vacant Freehold Building
3. Number of Bedrooms: 8
4. Number of Bathrooms: 2
5. Number of Reception Rooms: 2
6. Need quite a lot of work done to it
7. 15 mins walk from the current space

Thoughts?

Mentar

[Russ Garrett]

On 31 October 2012 00:36, Eugene Nadyrshin <ment...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In a quick search I've found this property which is the sortof place I had
> in mind: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-24467049.html

I don't really want to get involved with this project (although I
think it's an extremely noble effort), and I don't want to come across
the wrong way. However, I have to step in here as I've lived pretty
much all of my life in houses being refurbished.

That house does not "need quite a lot of work done to it". The house I
moved into three years ago needed "quite a lot of work done to it",
and I still haven't finished it. That place is going to take at least
£200k and at least eight months (of lost rent) to get to a state where
you can live in it, if you get a commercial builder to work on it.

(At that price, it's still a bit of a bargain, but I wouldn't
recommend it to anyone who doesn't have experience doing this
stuff...)

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Martin (Crypt)]

Yeh, thanks russ, looks interesting, I agree though it would take a while before we're able to move in.  I really don't have a lot of experience in this area, although I'm willing to put in the work, and spend the money to try to get it into a livable state.  I would really want to try to get an estimate from someone that knows what they're talking about before going into this. 

Also this is mentioned for auction, do we know when the auction is? because if its quite soon, we'd have to move quickly to figure out what we can do.  I think if its going to be something we'd have to do in a rush, I'd rather leave this one and try to do things right, than rush everything through and possibly get into a mess.  However, if we can get proper estimates of the work, and work out our own budgets first, then i'd be happy to give it a go.

[Martin (Crypt)]

Ahh damn, auction tomorrow, thats a definate no then :( although similar properties may be viable

[Eugene Nadyrshin]

I should have made this clear but this was more that show the type of property that I had in mind and to see what people think. I didn't necessarily mean this EXACT property.

I personally would rather buy something that needs fixing, put in the work and possibly get it finished professionally. As opposed to buying a newly built/redeveloped building an an inflated price. Is that the
general thinking here or am I kidding myself?

Either way it would be interesting what price it goes for! Also this property is being auctioned off on behalf of the Hackney Council, it may be worth approaching them directly with our proposal and see if they have something similar building in the area, that maybe isn't on the market yet. Councils are under pressure to bring abandoned building back into use.

On 31/10/12 08:33, Martin (Crypt) wrote:

[meredith scheff]

I would probably be interested, as well. 

--

Ladycartoonist.com

___________

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

[Robert Morris]

Hi,

Please could everyone who's interested in this add themselves to Billy's
Doodle:

http://www.doodle.com/gcx48s2nivrkagrr

Looks like the evening of Wed 14th is the favourite date to meet up at the
moment.

PS Billy: please can you extend the dates in Doodle by another week?

Ta,

Robert

[Eugene Nadyrshin]

Let's just meet on wednesday 14th then so we can kick things off! We'll
make sure that we keep notes for those unable to make it at that time.

There's biohacking at 7pm and mindhacking at 7:30pm. But then clashes
would have been addressed by the doodle already. Shall we say 7pm then?

Cheers
Mentar

P.S. that 8bed house in Dalston that was on auction for the guide price
of �250k-�300k was sold for �1.12m *jaw drop*

[Cadmus]

Interested in this sort of thing, anything that allows my current standard of living or better for the same or less money has my interest.

[Robert Morris]

Hi,

On Sun, Nov 04, 2012 at 10:53:59AM -0800, Cadmus wrote:
> Interested in this sort of thing, anything that allows my current standard
> of living or better for the same or less money has my interest.

Just to point out, a housing co-op is not:

1. A route to subsidised housing (some older housing co-ops got grant
funding in the 70s/80s but this option went away a long time ago)

2. A magic bubble in which the normal rules of the neo-liberal housing
market in this country do not apply

3. A way to put less effort into the place that you live

However, what it is is a way to take control, and have a more pro-active
input into your own housing than you get from private renting - or even
in some respects owning a flat leasehold. It gives you:

1. The opportunity to live collectively within an environment where
collaboration and co-operation are written in from day one - so there is a
commitment for you and your housemates to work together to resolve any
issues, not ignore them (or one another!)

2. The possibility of working on various Hackspace-type projects on your own
building (for example here at The Drive we've installed rainwater
collection, and we're talking about building our own clothes-drying room;
we've also done numerous "DIY" tasks around the place)

3. Knowing that the effort and money you're putting in is going to be kept
for the benefit of future occupants of the house (or the wider housing co-op
movement), and not extracted to fund someone else's lifestyle

These will be the things I'll be talking about on Wed 14th (or whenever the
meeting happens).

Regards,

Robert

[Billy]

My apologies for not getting this sorted sooner.

I've closed the Doodle. Wednesday the 14th of November is the day when
most people can make it along.

I'll chase a venue.





On 4 Nov, 20:57, Krzysztof Wrzałka <gmis...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I want to move to London to live there and join your Hackerspace.
> I'm really interested in hacker co-op housing.
> I have some experience in house refurbishment (plumbing, electrical,
> drywall, finishing, painting).

[Robert Morris]

Hi,

On Wed, Nov 07, 2012 at 07:12:46PM -0800, Billy wrote:
>
> My apologies for not getting this sorted sooner.
>
> I've closed the Doodle. Wednesday the 14th of November is the day when
> most people can make it along.
>
> I'll chase a venue.

Is this meeting still happening tomorrow?

Regards,

Robert

[Eugene Nadyrshin]

Yeah, let's get this off the ground!

7pm in the "common" area

Cheers
Eugene

[Robert Morris]

Hi,

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 11:12:03PM +0000, Eugene Nadyrshin wrote:
> Yeah, let's get this off the ground!
>
> 7pm in the "common" area

I'll be coming to you from Mile End climbing wall so it will probably be
about 7:30 by the time I've got changed etc and got over there.

I'm afraid I can only spend an hour because I have to get back to my housing
co-op to catch the tail end of our meeting. However I can hopefully at least
give you some pointers to get started and I can spend more time with you in
future as things develop.

See you tomorrow,

Robert

[Alex Cureton-Griffiths]

I've had a little bit of experience with this kind of thing:

* Stayed in Chez JJ, a hacker house in California. Interesting crowd of people, diverse lot. Quite a few short-term tenants. They finance themselves (either in part or full - I'm not sure) thru letting people stay via airbnb, but they're selective about who they let in. 45 USD/night was what I paid. www.chezjj.com

* Stayed in Human Hacker House in California for a few nights. The people who live there are more long-term and know each other pretty well, so a bit more difficult to break into the group. Home to a lot of quantified self folks. They let hackers stay for free.

Do you know about hackert0wn in New York? It got quite a bit of coverage and might be worth looking into:

  Indiegogo page: www.indiegogo.com/hackert0wn

  Long forum discussion about logistics and tough reality of building a hacker co-op house in USA: http://hackerspaces-general-discussion-list.899408.n3.nabble.com/hackerspaces-Help-me-make-it-happen-for-hackert0wn-on-Indiegogo-td4025570.html

I'd love to see one of these actually take off in London. If anyone wants to get in touch with any of the groups I mentioned above, let me know and I can introduce you

On Sunday, October 21, 2012 2:05:36 AM UTC+8, Robert Morris wrote:

Hi,

[Martin (Crypt)]

Sorry I'm still in latvia, so unable to make it to the meeting tonight.  I'll be back at the end of the week though, and still definately interested in starting this up, so let me know what you decide.

[Billy]

Don't worry about not being there, Martin. If you're setting up a co-
op, well, it's in the name.

We'll need to record what was discussed, and make it available to all
the people who are setting this up.

It'll be good practise for the long run.

[Eugene Nadyrshin]

Billy is just finishing with a tour and we are meeting informally near
the printers!

[Eugene Nadyrshin]

Right, we had the initial meeting, and my brain is now trying to de-fragment all that I've learned on the topic today.

A big thanks to Robert Morris for coming over and sharing his experiences and knowledge with us and answering the questions (and probably being late for the meeting of his coop!)

I've updated the wiki page with some more info that Billy and I put together

The next steps that we are looking at are:

1. Get a list of potential properties,and add to the table in the section below
2. Put together a list of committed members, skill-sets
3. Set up regular group meeting

Remember this will only work if we, as a group, put the effort in, so please start adding properties to the wiki and if add yourselves and your skill-set. If you are wiki-handicap then email me and I'll add the data on.

Cheers
Mentar

[Philippe Bradley]

Hi all,

I hope I haven't missed the boat on this. I live at, and am pretty heavily involved in, a pretty successful housing coop in south-east london (Sanford Housing Coop), and I swear by the model. If I can be involved with this, hopefully to your benefit (and I'm not sure whether I'd want to move out of Sanford, to be honest) maybe to mine, that would be awesome. Like Francis (but with far less experience - I'm only a trainee solicitor) I can bring legal assistance, and hopefully several years' worth of experience with Sanford that may be translatable to this project.

You're all very, very welcome to come and visit Sanford - just get in touch!

[Eugene Nadyrshin]

Hi Philippe,

You've not missed the boat at all don't worry, we are still at the very early stages of the initiative.
Thanks for offering to help with the legal assistance, it's great to see others willing to help out. Getting organised and started is by far the biggest hurdle and that's what we are doing now. I've just moved out of my place myself so should be able to spend more time on this. Will arrange for a new meetup before xmas!

Thanks
Eugene

On 26/11/12 00:45, Philippe Bradley wrote:

[Eugene Nadyrshin]

To keep the noise down, I've replied to this on the london-hack-house
mailing list.

Cheers
Mentar

On Wed, 2013-01-23 at 07:13 -0800, nic hodgkinson wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am also a member of Sanford Housing Co-op (for 12 years now!) and
> put Phil on to you i think....
> Anyway, Sanford is currently almost continually receiving Loanstock
> requests to support new housing co-op set-ups.
>
> Would any of you like to see the various applications / business
> plans? I could forward / upload them, they must be of some benefit to
> you. Perhaps Francis could appraise one if the rest of you single one
> out as good looking?
> Business is not my strong point unfortunately.
>
> Lastly apologies for not being around / available for the Hacker's
> Co-op visit to Sanford last Wednesday.
> How did it go?
>
> Cheers, Nic
>
>
> --
>
>

[jhackshaw]

Robert

We own some space for a Hacker Housing Coop in Shoreditch,

Could you get in touch,

john.h...@gmail.com

john