Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Greater Hartford Cohousing's only viable site.. (Shelly Demeo)

[MartyR707 (MartyR707]

In a message dated 4/8/01 10:01:25 AM, "Shelly Demeo" <shelldemeo [at] 
home.com> 
writes:
>
>Hello--
>
>I had a questions for those of you living in cohousing right now.  Do =
>you have regrets about the site you chose?  Do you feel your group had
>to make sacrifices and let go of that perfect land ideal?  And, if you
>did made do with the site you had, are you glad you did? Or were you =
>unable to "sell the site" to others.=20
>
>Our group's only viable piece of land at the moment is a 40 acre parcel
>of lightly-wooded farmland, abutting a high school in the small =
>Connecticut town of East Granby.  The problem is that the site is about
>1/2 a mile from a gun club (some people are nervous about that although
>it seems well regulated) and the site is close to Bradley International
>Airport, here in Connecticut.  While planes do not fly over our land, =
>you definitely hear them around and occasionally see one low on the =
>horizon.  The pizza joint in town is called the Landing Zone Pizza =
>House!

I'd say your phrase "at the moment" is key.  I live at Two Acre Wood in 
Sebastopol, CA on a site that we are all absolutely in love with.  We had a 
very long and arduous land search process, with two other properties that 
fell through and several others that were considered.  We were so desperate 
to have land and move forward, that we came close to settling for some "OK" 
parcels.  I am so thankful we did not.  When you are talking about building a 
place  you may live for the rest of your life, I think it is pretty important 
to have a site that feels pretty right - for whatever reasons.  I, 
personally, would have a pretty hard time living close to a gun club and an 
airport (flight patterns can change, development tends to intensify around 
airports, the sound of innocent birds being killed, and so on.)  Not to put a 
damper on your plans, but I am saying I think it is worth holding out (if you 
can) for a site that feels really good.

One thing that happened for us was that we were so set on a 5 acre parcel 
that we had overlooked the 2 acre piece that we now live on.  It turned out 
to be perfect - once we got used to the idea of half the number of houses!  
So, be flexible in your vision too and more possibilities may present 
themselves.  Good luck!

Marty Roberts
Two Acre Wood - where I was involved in the land search committee and all the 
other planning and development for five years before we moved in.  It was 
hard - really hard -- but worth it!!
_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l