GENERAL MEETING 4

7.30pm
Wednesday 24 MAY 2000

At: CERES Education Centre
8 Lee Street, Brunswick

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Present:
Hamish McCracken, Paul Adams, Cinnamon Evans, Vyv Rodnight, Richard, Mick Morgan, Adam Tiller, Jane Leneford, Noel Blencowe, Elvira Muller

Apologies:
Maya Ward, Paula Jorgensen

People gave a brief summary of their interest in the cohousing group.
Richard: Involved in CERES incl. Citipower land purchase project; postgrad study on cohousing; property development
Mick: Interested in sustainable building & housing
Adam: Melbourne Cohousing; Permaculture Cohousing group in past
Jane: would like to live in cohousing
Cinnamon: CERES Staff person, would like to live in Cohousing
Elvira: CERES involvement, owner of a unit but wants to return to Brunswick & would like it to be in Cohousing
Hamish: broad interest
Paul: Interest in urban shared living
Noel: CERES Administrator; shared house experience; would be interested in community living

Issues From Last Meeting

Summary of Previous Minutes by Cinnamon

1. Reports

Communication:
- Waiting on outcomes of this meeting re Name of Group & Vision Statement
- Website - investigating option - creating or join with a current ‘green’ site
- Forum at CERES by Urban Ecology on 28th May - could help with images Procedures
- Cathy agreed to submit options to this meeting - still outstanding
- Adam questioned need for membership
- Viv recommended some financial commitment
- Cinnamon felt there was a need to empower people to take action if necessary

Finance:
- Noel & Maya met with Moreland City Council administrator, Adrian Robb. MCC has 1.5million assigned to ‘housing’ which MCC want to hold & use the interest for smaller projects.
- Noel also said that MCC had appointed 2 housing officers to start in June. MCC offered them to give us am much help as we require.
- Noel pointed out that the land itself becomes the guarantor
- Noel contacted Ethical investments
- Money could be obtained from Individuals and/or Financial Institutions
- Before any borrowing could be considered we must:
- Define clearly to what a Lender is committing themselves
- be able to raise a deposit which could be 1/3 of the cost for a bank loan
- Incorporate
- Have a sound business plan
- Richard advised that a clearer picture of our plan in required - number of units, size of units in square meters & number of bedrooms in units, size of building area, land & building cost to calculate unit cost.
- Hamish suggested we could find investors with an ideological commitment or many many small investors
- Noel emphasised the importance of a good network
- Noel reported that the council have not received a permit to rezone the site & permits take 6 months to process.
- Noel emphasised the importance of addressing the above 4 points he noted above.
- Richard suggested we could get a developer to do it for us. There was some agreement to this suggestion. Putting out to tender was suggested
- Noel advised that Bronwyn Pike the State Government Minister has money allocated to public housing. Noel is contacting her office to discuss the matter.

Ratify:
- Name of group
Group ratified the suggested Merri Cohousing
- Meeting procedure
Systems for decision making, group structure, meeting process suggested from Process Group (Paula, Viv, Hamish) was read out at beginning of meeting. There were no objections.
- Vision statement
Not tabled. Paul will contact Paula who has collected vision statements

2. Other business
- General agreement that when a policy is first tabled, it be tabled as a draft for discussion
- Hamish suggested that important decisions need to be able to be deferred
- Elvira suggested that when a procedure is to be tabled at a meeting & the person tabling the procedure cannot attend then the procedure be emailed / sent to someone who is definitely attending the meeting.

Meeting Closed