Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Lot Development Model

[Pablo Halpern (phalpern]

> From: Stuart Staniford-Chen <stanifor [at] cs.ucdavis.edu>
> 
> I'm also curious how the process of custom home building will interact  
> with group formation.  Custom home building is famously stressful - the  
> advice I have heard for couples is not to attempt it unless you are  
> certain your relationship is rock solid.  Can people involved in this also
> invest a lot of time in the group process needed to start a community?   
> How will the community be different as a result of the different process 
> at the start?  (I'm not stating a position, just wondering).

As Rob said, the reason custom building is so stressfull is because of the 
gazillion decisions that have to be made. If a couple has trouble agreeing 
on these decisions, it could indeed cause a strain in their relationship. It 
seems to me the problem is even worse for "non-custom" cohousing. If people 
have to stick to a few floor plans, then the entire community has to agree 
on those floor plans. Effectively, the entire community becomes one giant 
custom building project, with a lot more than two people having to work out 
agreement. Talk about stress!

In our own experience at New View, we have something in-between. Together we 
worked with our architects on a few floor plans, but people can pay to have 
their house customized. We got some of the advantages and some of the 
disadvantages of both approaches. If we didn't allow as much customization, 
we would have had more trouble agreeing on the floor plans. However, almost 
nobody is escaping without incurring quite a bit of cost and stress from 
customizations.

- Pablo

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Pablo Halpern              (508) 435-5274         phalpern [at] world.std.com

New View Neighborhood Development, Acton, MA, U.S.A.
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