Cohousing Conference report #3 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Fred H Olson (fholsonmaroon.tc.umn.edu) | |
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 04:24:26 -0500 |
I forgot to mention inreport #2 that the TV segment (if it happens) will be Good Morning America, ABC, 8-9 EDT. about 5-6 minutes, and includes segments on Pioneer Valley (Amherst MA) and Lake Claire Village (?) (Atlana) communities. I realize this is probably too late to be much use ... Saturday at the conference started off with a plenary session (everyone) with Jim Leach and Zev Paiss with lots of useful insights that I cant begin to summarize. One topic that I want to mention is the continuing evolution of "Developer Driven" cohousing development in which experienced cohousing developers make things happen more expeditiously and there is less reliance on a "do it your self" approach. One of the big needs is to have more " experienced cohousing developers" . A major step in doing this is the workshop coming up a about 3 weeks in Colorado for developers led by current experienced cohousing developers. Contact Zev Paiss for more information zpaiss [at] aol.com or call Rocky Mountain Cohousing Association 303-584-3237 On Sat there were 4 mostly one hour "Concurrent sessions" on at least 5 topics simultaneously each session. Topics had been chosen in the Fri morning process (see report #2) (about 20 topics scheduled). I can only mention the ones that I attended (or wanted to attend - there's more to talk about than there is time -- Liberty Village Community in MD has 10 people here and is trying to cover most everything...) Ad hoc over lunch discussions were also organized including the one Kathryn Smith (Calif Architect grad student and co-author of _Rebuilding Community in America_), Sherri Zann-Rosenfeld (sp?) (developer at Eno Commons in NC) and I assembled nominally on the topic of the role of professionals in retrofit cohousing. A sampling of Sat concurrent topics: Couples in Cohousing lead by Joani Blank - a low key session that was nice for a change, Affordability (I didnt get to it) Collaboration with other Community oriented groups such as Fellowship for Intentional Community and the Global Ecovillage Network and WWW page design / collaboration (topic is an example of combining somewhat overlapping topics so both get covered), Urban infill cohousing, Sustainable development. Several sessions have discussed aspects of the question of how does cohousing develelopment / and the movement relate to closely related movements of Intentional community and ecovillages. These topics deserve on-going consideration, I think. My personal opinion is that there are ways in which seperate discussions / movements have there place but that much more awareness and discussion across flavors of intentional community are needed. Todays paraphrased comments: The biggest single design factor that contributes to sustainability is site location to the degree it reduces private automobile use. At move in time when this statistic was gathered, at Winslow Cohousing, only 18 or 20 out of 50 adults commuted to work which is considerably below national norms. from Chris Hanson, Cohousing Consultant from Portland, OR. Sunday the conference wraps up with tours of local communities, a wrap up session and a closing presentation with Katie McCamant. Remember more detailed notes on sessions are coming. These are just my ad hoc notes intended to give a feel for whats happening as it happens. Fred -- Fred H. Olson fholson [at] tc.umn.edu Zipcode: 55411 (612)588-9532 Amateur radio: WB0YQM List manager of: Cohousing-L See www.cohousing.org and nbhd-tc the Twin Cities Neighborhood issues list. See www.freenet.msp.mn.us
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