Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Update

[Buzz Burrell (72253.2101]

>From Rob:

>Speaking for myself, I really enjoyed reading Higs report on Cascade
>Cohousing. I would like to read other groups reports, maybe once a
>quarter or so, just for an overview of where groups are at, what they
>are up to.  

>So, maybe to start a trend, here is a status report on Sharingwood.

Being from Boulder, I'm very trendy, so here goes ...

Geneva Community purchased 176 acres of land N of Lyons, Colorado in February.
That makes it 40 minutes N of Boulder.  176 acres sounds like a lot, and it is,
but I should say right away that means we are only allowed 5 houses.  We could
go the PUD route, but decided long ago being involved with beaurocracy is not
our goal in life, and so we are applying for no variances, re-zoning, or other
not-likely-to-be-granted, time consuming, expensive, and aggravating proceedures
that are completely unrelated to our desire to preserve the spirit of the land
and create community.

So our development will be a little different.  We will replat the acreage into
the 5 allowable lots, and then simply cluster the houses together, thus
preserving the majority of the land as natural habitat.  Furthermore, each house
will be a shared home, 2 people/families, thus our Community is expected to be
10 units.

This year we will be doing all the infrastructure (driveway, utility, wells),
the financial and legal instruments, and the design and probably even the
contracting for the individual homes, which will be constructed in 1997.

6 of the 10 shares are sold.  For some reason, we haven't done a lick of
marketing for the other 4.  Inquiries are welcome.  Our Community is composed of
the land as much as it is of the people, so prospective residents should keep
that in mind. 

We are self-developing.  The future residents own 100% of the shares in the
corporation, which will be converted to fee simple ownership in the 5 lots after
they are ready for building.

Currently, we are deciding just how ecological of a development we will do.
However it goes, I suspect certain aspects will some of the most progressive
ever done in a cohousing community.  I am facilitating the "PEP talks".  This
means Progressive Energy Programming;  we are considering greywater recycling,
composting toliets, and Photovoltaic power generation amoung other design
attributes.  We have already agreed upon a certain standard of passive solar
design.  

There is a wide income range amoungst the owners.  Once we get to the building
phase, this will not be an issue, as the Lot Development Model enables everyone
to do whatever thier own budget and desires allow for their own house.  However
in the Site Planning Phase, we all share equally in the costs, and so some
median is being hashed out that will fit the groups highly diverse
money/skill/time levels. 

Much is unknown, and we have set it up so that is OK.  We figure out what is
neccessary at the time, and leave the rest to unfold.  Maybe in the fall I'll
post what we discovered in these next few months.

Best of luck to all!

Buzz Burrell
Geneva Community (these are my comments only)
Colorado 

Buzz's tip of the day

"Time flies like an arrow
 Fruit flies like a banana".