Re: Questioning cohousing ideals
From: Berrins (Berrinsaol.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 23:29:06 -0600 (MDT)

1.    How do you justify separating cars into central carparks on the
perimeter of a community?  Issues of access to the homes, weather etc
seem to preclude having perimeter parking in her mind. 

Lots of good answers so far, so I'll just throw in a few minor points.
    - Car access is still available.  Horrible weather, sleeping kids and 
shopping loads too large for the carts are all drive-up-to-the-house 
situations.  But for the vast majority of times, it's really no problem at 
all to park and walk, and our house is the furthest from the lot (about 300 
feet).  In fact, it's much healthier.
    - I hope to put a basketball hoop somewhere in our overflow parking area; 
we even have the land and resources to put in our own court should we chose 
to do so.  Try playing basketball in a one- or two-car driveway with a car in 
it!

<< 4.    The rythmn of the street relies on buildings having a prescribed
setback from the street [supposedly].  By clustering my buildings and
facing them toward the local river, I have turned my back on this
'streetscape'.  How do you address this change of rythmn and change of
ownership of space [balance of public and private space has been
altered.>>

Urban buildings have virtually no set-back.  The steps frequently empty right 
out onto the sidewalks or have a tiny walk.  People sit on the stoop and 
interaction is high.   Clustered buildings have a similar effect- get folks 
close to each other and they'll interact.  Put a large lawn,  driveway, or 
fence in the way and interaction plummets.  Keeping the front yards small is 
one way that cohousing clusters create interactive neighborhoods.  The 
"street" is simply a pedestrian one, like the sidewalk an urban building 
connects to.  

Cohousing also creates new "quasi-public" spaces.  Houses are private, 
streets nearby but outside the community are public, and the pedestrian paths 
and green spaces within are "quasi-public";  used mostly by cohousers and 
friends but not by the general public.

Facing houses toward the river is not a cohousing concept; facing them 
towards each other is.  Sure, each house can have a view of the river, or 
even face the river; but they should also face each other.  In other words, a 
well-designed cohousing house does not "turn it's back" on anything; the goal 
is inclusion, not exclusion.

And it works.  We lived for over 12 years on a 1/4 acre lot on a typical city 
street in Northampton.  Off street parking, no sidewalk on our side.  We 
rarely interacted with anyone from our street because we rarely saw anyone 
close enough to say hi to.  We had some good friends one street over and went 
there a lot (still do), but for the most part people drove up to their 
houses, parked and went inside.  So did we.  I can't begin to tell you how 
much that has changed since we moved into Pathways five months ago.

As far as your instructor's prejudice goes, I would ask you; on what research 
that directly investigates cohousing does she base her opinions?  Also, has 
she ever spent any time at a cohousing community or has she formed these opini
ons in a real-life vacuum?  You may already know more than she does about 
cohousing.  If that's the case, good luck!

    -Roger Berman
    Pathways Cohousing
    Northampton, MA

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