Cohousing-L Mailing List: Sonoma County Cohousing

[Weaver (eris]

Just thought I'd send our an update as to the status of our project in
Cotati, California.

Our group currently has ten full member families and five or six associate
members.  We've grown significantly in a short time, so we are adjusting
and learning a lot about how to manage a larger group of people so that
our meetings are a reasonable length yet everyone feels heard.  Some of
the newer folks have expressed that they feel a little "outside" of the
"in group" of older members; we are all going away to a nearby retreat
center for a weekend soon, to do some major hanging out -- no business
allowed!

We have a contract on a 2.3 acre parcel in downtown Cotati.  We are
working with both the Cohousing Company and Wonderland Hill to develop
our site.  We've gone through the first of three design workshops; we've
got a beautiful site design, with 29 units, a large common house,
workshop, vegetable garden, bike and pedestrian paths, and a nature area.
In September we will design our common house, and in October our
individual units; we plan to submit a tentative map by the end of the
year.

After two years and several rejected sites, it is so exciting that this is
finally HAPPENNING!

One of the stumbling blocks we encountered on a political level was a
master plan for the neighborhood that included a street smack through the
middle of our parcel -- bleah!  In an attempt to get a variance we have
held a public hearing, spoken before the planning commission AND the city
council.  We so far have a lot of community support as well as support
from the city, and are now  ready to move on with planning.

We are actively seeking new members. Our membership policy requires folks
to attend an orientation and two meetings before becoming full members
(although associate membership is open sooner).  As only full members
participate in design, we're hoping to pull some new folks in fairly
quickly!  We'll be holding an orientation on September 10; anyone
interested can email me for more details.

 ***********************
Eris Weaver
eris [at] wco.com
http://www.wco.com/~eris/socoho.html