Re: "Neighborhood" Cohousing or "Retrofit" Cohousing
From: Laura Fitch (lfitchkrausfitch.com)
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 12:41:40 -0800 (PST)
N street model is certainly how i referred to it for years.  Laura

On Sunday, December 8, 2013, Kathy Kelly wrote:

>
> How about the "N Street Model"? It's such a great story (and model)!
> Kathy Kelly
> Coyote Crossing Coho
> Santa Cruz, CA
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 12:57 AM, Kevin Wolf <kevin [at] 
> wolfandassociates.com<javascript:;>
> >wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi Cohousing Activists,
> >
> > I just finished speaking at the UK Cohousing Network's special conference
> > on Retrofit Cohousing.  They invited me because N Street Cohousing is a
> > premier example of how existing homes can be converted over time into a
> > vibrant cohousing community.  We have grown to 20+ houses and around 60
> > adults in the 25 years we have considered ourselves a cohousing
> community.
> >
> > One thing that came out of this excellent event is the awareness that
> there
> > are problems with the word "retrofit" to describe what N Street and other
> > similar types of communities are doing.  We found out that people did not
> > attend because they thought it was about retrofiting existing buildings
> > into built choosing, similar to Doyle Street and Swans Market Cohousing
> > here in CA.
> >
> > The word retrofit also doesn't describe the many ways in which "non
> built"
> > cohousing can develop and evolve.  "Built" cohousing is defined as all
> the
> > units coming on line more or less at the same time as one project.
> >
> > One of the speakers at the UK conference described her group's effort to
> > buy homes in an inexpensive neighbourhood near Cardiff and evolve that
> into
> > cohousing in the years to come. Few of the members would have contiguous
> > homes. They'd like to buy a home near the entrance to the neighbourhood
> and
> > convert it into a common house with possible use as a cafe during the day
> > to help pay for it. It might also be rented out for non members to use as
> > well.  It is a different strategy to achieve the same goals as all of us
> > want to achieve in our cohousing communities.  In my opinion, the goals
> we
> > are pursuing are more important than the specific means by which we
> achieve
> > them, and the core elements of a cohousing community are a common house
> and
> > the gifting of our time cooking meals for each other.
> >
> > So after the conference a few of us met for dinner and came up with a new
> > proposed word to describe the type of cohousing the grows over time and
> is
> > not built all at once - Neighborhood Cohousing.    We considered words
> like
> > Evolving Cohousing or   Starting Small Cohousing but like the robustness
> of
> > the word Neighborhood and all the potential in it.
> >
> > By the way, N Street member houses have been spreading out over our
> > neighborhood with five of them no longer being contiguous and one of them
> > at least a block away, and a long time Friend of the Community (one of
> our
> > FOCers) lives a few blocks away.
> >
> > We'd like to spark a discussion with the U.S cohousing community on
> whether
> > we should change from the word Retrofit to Neighborhood or another word
> to
> > define N Street types of cohousing from communities as being different
> from
> > cohousing communities that are built all at once from retrofitted old
> > buildings.
> >
> > Thank you for weighing in.
> >
> > Kevin
> > N Street Cohousing co-founder
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
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>

-- 
Laura Fitch, AIA, LEED-BD+C
Kraus-Fitch Architects
110 Pulpit Hill Rd.
Amherst, MA  01002
lfitch [at] krausfitch.com

Board Member, Cohousing Association of US
www.cohousing.org

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