Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: REsonse to some of Johns post on community

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

I find it really difficult to believe that people would go through all 
the angst of becoming real estate developers if all they wanted was to 
build a "safe" home, or just to add a little excitement in their life.  
Are you actually working on a cohousing community John?  Much of what 
you posted doesn't jive with what I have learned about cohousing from 
doing it, nor anything else I have heard from others doing cohousing 
either.  I would agree that anyone who relied on this list for their 
information about cohousing would get a skewed view of the world - much 
of the value of this list is access to people who have experience and 
can give answers to the difficult development questions that we face in 
becoming real estate developers.

In my experience, which is limited but growing, I hear people who are 
investing in cohousing developments pretty much all tell me they are 
searching for a way to create closer relationships with their 
neighbors.  My impression is that these  folks are willing to do it all 
from scratch because they believe that having a closer connection to 
their neighbors is a better way to live and they are willing to 
sacrifice time and energy to create a place where this can happen.  
They do not believe, that where they currently live, offers them this 
opportunity.

Could cohousing be created in a trailer park?  I don't see why not.  
Could cohousing be created in strawbale sheds? I don't see why not.  
Can cohousing happen in existing neighborhoods?  I really hope so, 
because that is where the future of cohousing lies.  When the existing 
pioneering communities (exclusive yuppie enclaves?) show the world that 
working collaboratively with your neighbors, communicating your issues, 
and agreeing to work together and helping each other, has such huge 
advantages, then a bunch of people are going to want that too.  Whether 
they live on golf courses, or in trailers, or in one room adobe huts, 
or a mixture of all the above.

There is a very exclusive golf club community (Echo falls) not far from 
Sharingwood, and in comparing it to Sharingwood I would offer the 
following five differences:
1. Echo falls is not resident designed to meet the needs of the 
residents, it was designed to maximize developers profits.
2. There is no social covenant expected. That is to say, you can 
totally ignore your neighbors if you want.  This is not  the 
expectation at any cohousing community I am aware of.
3. There are no communication covenants expected.  You can say whatever 
you want to, however you want to, including being totally destructive 
of all relationships.  In cohousing, communication is set up so that 
relationship enhancement is the primary goal.  I don't know of any 
existing cohousing community that doesn't have some sort of 
communication or process committee to help people resolve their issues 
and help them communicate.
4. In golf course development there is no "group" which is the standard 
for making decisions.  In cohousing and other forms of community, you 
often make decisions based on what is best for the group, even though 
this is not what is best for you.
5. In golf course development there is no reliance on neighbors, you 
are expected to be independent.  In cohousing, you rely on your 
neighbors to at least make you dinner once and if you need to, you can 
rely on them for quite a lot of help.

>From the outside, Sharingwood looks just like a regular, newish 
suburban neighborhood.  From the inside, it is very, very different.  
If you equate condo's and their common spaces with cohousing 
communities, then all you are seeing is the outside and you are missing 
most of what goes on.  The fact that the traffic on this list has a lot 
of development issues  is not surprising. However, there has been a 
fair amount of traffic over the last year on values, communications, 
facilitation, meetings, conflict resolution, all of which are topics 
which are germane to any type of intentional community.


Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood