Cohousing-L Mailing List: Risk Management <was: Re: Marketing question ...> seeking examples

[Liz Ryan Cole (lizryancole]

If you (and others who have posed along those lines) can figure out a way to 
write about this (perhaps  Risk Management is the right subject line), without 
exposing anyone to embarrassment, I think it would be incredibly instructive 
for anyone on this list.  Perhaps it needs a separate subject line?  Perhaps 
one could already find a great deal using the Archives (which I confess I have 
never figured out how to use)

 My question is...How can one or a few people, using uninformed or very poorly 
informed fear, keep their community from moving forward on something.  Philip’s 
example is fear based, but not fact based, resistance to electric cars. Ann’e 
example is a glass blowing kiln (and I have no facts about those safety 
concerns).  Is this a misunderstanding of/misapplication of consensus?  or does 
living in cohousing, at least the communities that use consensus based decision 
making, have to mean (as some potential members fear) giving up making science 
based decisions (as an example) when one or more members have beliefs that make 
them discount data in favor of other factors?

I understand that this is a huge topic.  Perhaps we could begin by simply 
sharing other examples of communities that have struggled with these decisions. 
 One example I think of… what if someone in a cohousing neighborhood or 
community decided they didn’t want to have their children immunized? 

thanks   liz

Liz Ryan Cole
lizryancole [at] me.com
Pinnacle Cohousing
Loch Lyme Lodge
Lyme, NH
Home 802.785.4124
Work 802.831.1240
Lodge 603-795-2141

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire 
to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E.B. White




On Jul 11, 2017, at 7:07 PM, R Philip Dowds <rpdowds [at] comcast.net> wrote:


At Cornerstone, we have one or more households that want to buy electric cars, 
and will need charging stations for these vehicles.  They are willing to pay a 
few thousand to retrofit car chargers to exterior walls adjacent to existing 
parking.  Other households, however, believe there are serious risks of 
electric cars bursting into flame due to battery failures; they believe this 
even though (a) it’s easy to find examples of condos providing charging 
stations in their underground garages, and (b) there’s little or no evidence 
that exploding electric cars are more of a problem than exploding 
refrigerators.  Nonetheless, a fear that something might go wrong has stalled 
out our decision for quite a while now.  How can our community possibly chose 
something that makes others feel unsafe?

Clearly, nobody wants to create significant risk, or unnecessary risk.  But I 
keep dreaming of cohousing, not as maximal risk mitigation, but as a social 
contract in which, as much as possible, we all help each other get what we want.

Thanks,
Philip Dowds
Cornerstone Village Cohousing
Cambridge, MA

> On Jul 11, 2017, at 6:04 PM, Ann Zabaldo <zabaldo [at] earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Early on we had a woman who wanted to put her glass blowing kiln in the 
> workshop but was shut down by people being afraid of an accident.   And since 
> we all bow to the possibility, however remote, of something tragic happening 
> … we don’t do anything or rather we restrict others from doing something.
> 
> I wonder how the communities that have LIVESTOCK on the premises manage to 
> deal w/ the risks and hazards of four-footed LARGE mammals?
> 
> 
> Best --
> 
> Ann Zabaldo

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