Re: self-development vs. partnering with an outside developer
From: Lon Goldstein (zebulon303mac.com)
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 11:43:01 -0700 (MST)
At 12:01 PM 2/24/2002 -0600, you wrote:
At present we are grappling with the decision as to whether we want to
self-develop or hire a developer (e.g. Wonderland).

We would appreciate words of wisdom from those of you who have engaged in
this process, your experiences with the pros and cons of the two options,
etc.

Dear Ted,
I can just put a word in for Wonderland here. I'm part of the Wild Sage Cohousing community forming in Boulder, Colorado. Personally I can't imagine getting this whole thing going without Wonderland. The project was started by Wonderland and we've been working with them for about 2 years now. We are hoping to start construction this coming fall. We are a part of a larger neighborhood development project in North Boulder being run by the city of Boulder.

I've heard that the typical pattern for self-developed cohousing communities is that it takes 10 years to get to completed construction and usually few of the original members are left by then. (somebody correct me if this is an inaccurate perception) I can easily imagine this being the case just because there is so much for the community to handle even with a developer taking care of the extremely complicated aspects such as financing, city planning, architecture etc. The community still needs to work on forming community, just deciding how to operate as a group, form a group identity, make decisions about design and construction, recruit and orient new people, etc.

Our experience with Wonderland has been extremely positive. They've guided us and worked cooperatively with us in all aspects of decision-making. I've felt that they were always straight-forward and honest with the parameters of any decision that needed to be made and let us as a community come to a decision. They helped us get formed as a community in the first year, providing process support and structure and have smoothly handed off control to the community as it was ready to take it. They've provided a whole structure, plan and approach for getting a cohousing community up and running in 5 years.

They also are taking the major financial risk, which seems to make it more reasonable for us to share in that risk. If we had to put out money as individuals over the last 2 years for architects, facilitators, lawyers (what else?), not to mention finding land, agreeing on that, etc. I don't know how we would have gotten enough people to take that risk. I know many communities have started this way and my hat goes off to them with deep respect and appreciation for making it work. The idea of starting a community from scratch seems to be a very challenging one whereas going with Wonderland has been a fairly smooth one, though not without a lot of work and some struggles. And I have to say they have shown a great flexibility and wisdom in working closely with us through some of the more difficult struggles.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. I will be interested in reading about the successful experiences of those who have gone it alone or other points of view on going it alone.
Best of luck,
Lon





____________________________________________________________
Lon Goldstein
zebulon303 [at] mac.com

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