Re: What are optimal numbers for beginning group?
From: Rob Sandelin (floriferousmsn.com)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 09:57:30 -0700 (PDT)
One thing to know is that you will have to raise a whole bunch of cash, or
find a developer partner. It is not uncommon for people to have to put down
the equivalent of 10% of their unit price way prior to move in. This can
screen out a lot of people. There is often a fantasy in forming groups that
somehow our group is going to do a multimillion dollar real estate project
easily and cheaply. And it has not yet come true, almost always the first
projections at how much will this cost are low, it is not uncommon for them
to be 40% or more lower than the actual costs. The real costs do not become
known until very late in the process, and in many forming groups this had
led to some painful separations of people who were involved for sometimes
several years but who have no hope of qualifying for a  mortgage for the
units.  And along the way there will be some difficult, painful, and maybe
even ugly meetings where people will fall aside as well, not to mention lots
and lots of meetings that seem to go on forever, again leaving some people
behind who get tired of it all, or find a simple house purchase is a better
choice for them. 

If you have control of a site, a bank willing to give you a construction
loan, and a sound financial core group of committed members you can be
selective about who you decide to let design the commonhouse and limit it to
equity members. If you do not have these things, then you are probably going
to want to have 50% more people than you have now because many people may
fall in the quest. 


Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Cohousing
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: Nikki Sachs [mailto:nikkisachs [at] gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 6:18 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ What are optimal numbers for beginning group?

Hi, We are just forming our group and are wondering how many people are too
much for a process workshop and a design workshop?  What have been other
groups experiences as you form in terms of numbers of members?  Is it better
to have a smaller early group or not.  Our project hopes to have 30
households when complete.  Would that be too many people to design a common
house?  We have a lot of interest in our project and will have to close the
group at some point (excluding some people for a while) and we are trying to
figure out the best numbers for  effective work. Thanks, Nikki Sachs  North
Oakland Cohousing
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