Should units of different sizes contribute in different amounts to funding the option for the site?

The Reef
#1

Hello @reef-finance, making a proposal on this item is on our table. Tonight I had a bit of time and I made a simulation. It compares two scenarios:

  • Scenario 1: equal total contributions. All households make the same contribution to funding the purchase of an option on the site, regardless of the size of the different units.
  • Scenario 2: equal contributions by square meter purchased. Households fund the purchase of an option on the site in proportion to the square meters of their desired unit, as reported in the document Mark and the architects call le programme.

Since we do not have le programme for The Reef, I used data I invented. For simplicity, I imagined a cohousing made of only five units of different sizes, with the same purchase price per square meter across all units (no “price fork” between units). The result is something like this:

image

Does it make sense to present this in its present form so that people can get their heads around the issue, or do we need to wait for @reef-building to make le programme? The latter could take a while, as Building needs to start a form or spreadsheet or something, then we all need to provide some numbers.

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Team Building: getting started
#2

Hi @alberto & @reef-finance

This is great and shows very well the consent, especially that it is visual and small scale. I wouldn’t wait for team building and present it as it is. What others think?

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#3

Ok, that is doable. Maybe 30 mins of work from me to write a proposal document. The recommendation is: use scenario 2, where each household contributes in function of the desired number of square meters.

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#4

Here is the draft proposal. Also ping @Lee.

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#5

Very interesting! Thanks a lot @alberto!

In my mind equal contributions weren’t really an option, because it seems so unfair and not in line with our ambition of solidarity, but happy to include it in the proposal of course. I inserted a couple of minor comments because there were a couple of things my tired brain didn’t manage to process at the first reading.

That being said, when my brain was still fresh, my inner nerd got the better hand, and I started playing around with numbers myself (file saved in your folder). What I did is estimate the number of units of each size (averaged to 40, 60, 80 or 100 m²) and from there calculating the price per square meter, which in the simulation that I made would come down to 161 euro.

From there I think the next question is how we can help the two households (in the simulation) that would go for a unit of 40 m². If we would want to differentiate the contributions a bit further, maybe we could do it on a voluntary basis? We could say, for these households, the option would cost 6000 euro, but that may be too much in terms of savings available, so if we want to reduce that to, say 3500 euro, we need to raise 5000 euro from people who are willing to pay a little extra (2 x 6000 = 12000 = [(3500 x 2) + 5000].

That would be my two cents. I like to think of myself as not a star with numbers, so feel very free to disregard my number juggling eh.

#6

OK, tell you what. We can do the following:

  • Scenario 1 is a sort of baseline. Easy, but regressive.
  • Scenario 2 is more fair.
  • And you can make a scenario 3, where larger units contribute more than proportionally to the surface purchased. We then recommend scenario 3 to the plenary.

There remains a problem, though: your idea of voluntary contribution makes sense, but unfortunately I think it would only become clear with real data. If I agree to putting in “a little more”, how much am I agreeing to? I would myself struggle to agree to something this vague. You could in principle achieve clarity by saying “well, in scenario 1 contribution is a constant; in scenario 2 it is a linear function of the surface; and in scenario 3 it is a more-than-linear function”, and that would work mathematically, but I don’t think it would be so clear.

So, unless someone has an inspiration, if you want to vote in scenario 3 you need to wait for le programme and then make it ad hoc.

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#7

@alberto, I updated your proposal with a third scenario as you requested. Feel free to edit and amend as you see fit.

I don’t agree on the lack of clarity however, rather on the contrary. Say we would work on the assumption of 15 households who participate. In this case we would get the following:

  • Scenario 1: everybody contributes 10.000 euro
  • Scenario 2: everybody pays 175 euro per square meter => 7000 euro for a 40 m² unit, 17.500 for a 100 m² unit
  • Scenario 3: idem to scenario 2, except that households with a 40 m² unit could only pay 3000 euro if 8 (or more) households agree to pay 1000 euro extra.

Important note: this 1000 euro extra in scenario 3 is not a gift, but an extra advance you pay for your own unit.

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#8

@reef-finance,

As @alberto is taking a break from his other duties as long as he is putting our books up to date, I offered to jump in for this proposal. I would like to work a little more on the proposal, mostly to concisely explain the difference between the 3 scenarios. When I finish, I could tag you and leave it up to you for a review. Would that work?

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