Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Controversy over attached garages

[David G Adams (dadams]

> Garages are used by most people for many things other than parking cars or
> providing workshop space.  Before you give up the space/uses a garage 
> provides, then make sure those needs are met in some other way(e.g. where
> will your dog hang out during the rainy season? will their be common space
> for storing the third seat out of your mini-van?  where are you going to p
> the 1986 financial records?, 
Ever hear of basements?  How about tool sheds?  There are also plenty of 
inexpensive mini-storage facilities for stuff you only need to get to 
occasionally.  Unfortunately, you need to drive to those.

> or that bike your toddler will grow into when
> they're 9 (answer, get rid of it a buy another one in a few years . . . a
> real environmentally sound solution.)  
You "get rid of it" by selling it to (or swapping it with) someone who needs 
a 9 year old's bike now.  Then when your toddler is nine, you won't have to 
deal with "but that old thing is rusted and the color scheme is _soooo_ 
1900's.  Get with the millenium, Dad!"
More seriously, there is a huge market (at least in Boston) in used bikes, 
washers, dryers, dining room sets, etc.  Posessions tend to move down the 
food chain from established folks to young couples to college students.  
Don't buy everything new!  Also, if you can afford it, donate older bikes to 
Bikes Not Bombs, an organization the refurbishes bikes for shipment to poor 
nations.

> For those in the "I hate cars so I their garages, too" camp:  Are you 
> absolutely sure that not allowing someone to have a garage is going to 
> contribute to a reduction in the amount of driving that person does?  Are
> they going to be better neighbors, or more sociable, because they have to
> haul their groceries and screaming two-year-old through the snow in a Radi
> Flyer?  Is it okay for your moral position to be imposed on someone else?
(*) I don't hate garages.  Like I said, I've never had one so I can't really 
say.  I would prefer to see a garage across the street than to see cars on 
the sidewalk.  
(*) Of course people won't drive less just because they don't have a garage. 
(*) All the two year olds I've met simply love being sledded with the 
groceries.  It's adults who hate snow.
(*) A cohousing group has a right to state as a value that some, most, all, 
or even none of the community be pedestrian-oriented.  The members of the 
group need to sign onto whichever vision has been concensed. 
(*) I'm not imposing my position on anyone.  I'm not coercing anyone to live 
with me by my rules.  Society, by means of the government, imposes taxes on 
me to help to subsidize the automobile culture.  To me, the automobile 
symbolizes the entire whitebread mayonnaise suburban monoculture freeway 
drive-in single=family-house vast-monoculture-grass-lawn fear-of-crime 
rape-the-earth Gulf War television world.  Yes, we do own a car.  We may 
sell it after moving into cohousing.
(*) New View had already reached consensus on how to best balance needs of 
cars and need for car-free spaces (is this true?).  The decision had not 
been imposed.  That's why there is a consensus process in nearly all coho 
groups.  Of course it is okay for the group's moral decision to be imposed 
on the individuals.  What are laws other than moral positions imposed on all 
by representatives of the majority?

Enough flaming from me.

Dave Adams
Cornerstone
The views above do not necessarily reflect those of Cornerstone: A Cohousing 
Community nor those of my cat Marilyn.  They do, however, represent the 
Absolute Truth.  Die, heretics!

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  |\/\/\/|  David G. Adams   
  |____  |  U4 Consulting
 OO    ) |  Arlington, MA
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