Hard Decisions
From: pattymara (pattymarajuno.com)
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 18:44:01 -0600 (MDT)
After reading Sharon's account of their toughest decision (group member
with alleged sexual crime), ours pales in comparison.    I've surveyed
our group, Tierra Nueva Cohousing, after trying to come up with some of
my own examples.  Both of my memories of difficult decisions revolved
around individuals who wanted more than the group could offer and in the
process of finding that out,  all of us experienced deep processing.  My
husband Bruce remembers a more group-oriented tough decision so I will
describe that one.  

Background information:  Tierra Nueva Cohousing is sited on 5 acres of
land which was donated by an elderly woman whose dream was to house low
income seniors.   For the first half dozen years of our history we worked
diligently to fulfill her dream.  We worked for 3 years with the local
housing authority, investing in lawyers' fees (Kaching! for her lawyer, 
Kaching! for our lawyer)and uncountable hours of meeting time, only to
find out that it was a "no go" because of several factors, including the
owner's desire to retain design overview and resale limits.  It took us
over three years to receive the final "sucker punch" from the housing
authority dropping the project. We turned to a private group that
develops low cost housing in the county and after 3 months were told the
same thing.  Then we hired a senior housing consultant (Kaching! 
$10,000) to essentially tell us that building senior housing would be
fraught with complications, most of which I cannot remember now, but many
were site specific (proximity to services, bus lines etc) which is
important when depending on Community Block Development funding.  We cast
about for other solutions to fulfilling Gudrun's dream of low-cost senior
housing, and came up with zip.  The years were piling up, member
households were coming and going.  We were stalled.  Here comes the tough
decision:  we began to look at the possibility that we could not build
her dream, as she envisioned it:  a separate cluster of houses, with low
costs and high security.  We began to entertain the notion that we could
pitch a merging of her dream with our own intergenerational dream of
community, with seniors integrated into the life flow, not stuck over in
a corner of the development.  We knew we could not fulfill the low cost
feature she was holding on to, but figured it was worth a try to ask for
what we felt we could create, and trust that she would be willing to be
flexible.  

The discussions that led to our final decision to approach her with our
new vision was beset with lots of fears about what her reaction would be,
how we would be viewed by her and of course, the big one, "what if" she
says adios and we are out in the cold with no prospect of finding land in
the increasingly precious California real estate market.    When we
finally reached agreement to go forward with our new idea of merging the
dreams, we formed a committee who worked on a letter.  Back and forth
from committee to group, with several iterations.  The tensions were
running high....most of us stressed to the limit with the rigors of
trying to communicate with and fulfill another's dream as well as
building communication skills within our own group, and the several
county agencies and attorneys that we interacted with.    We realized
that this action could make or break our dream.  

Our final proposal to Gudrun described our vision of an intergenerational
community, with a commitment to market to seniors so that 25% of the
group's households would be over 55 years old.  More back and forths with
lawyers to create yet another addendum to the Gift Agreement....and at
long last Gudrun said yes.   We threw a huge party, of course, and just
last week I found the champagne corks that we had marked and saved to
remember the occasion.  

Our marketing to seniors was so successful that we ended up with about
40% of our membership being over 55, and still a healthy contingency of
youngsters (over 25 kids at move-in).    We found that the seniors out
there were the ones with the money...we later created silent second
mortgages to help two families with kids to more easily afford buying
their homes.    

Patty Mara Gourley
Tierra Nueva Cohousing, central CA coast



 





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