Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Seniority-Much Ado About Nothing

[Dahako (Dahako]

Liz -

I have two hats on this, because I live in cohousing and I work on community 
development and affordable housing grant programs for HUD. After years in 
this field, my early ideology has been tempered into a directed pragmatism - 
here at Eno Commons,we educated a lot of people during our marketing, we 
continue to educate ourselves and our friends and family and our kids 
schoolmates, we showed a conventional builder how to incorporate a few new 
green technologies and still make a little money.  That's a lot, in my 
experience, for any one development.

Although our neighborhood used no HUD funds, not even an FHA mortgage, we did 
manage to bring the home prices in at about the median new construction price 
even though our homes had substantial green building/passive solar 
technologies built into them.  Not every possible technology on the market - 
we had cost constraints - but solidly better than the norm in our market.  

We have owners and renters, and the income levels in our community vary 
between the poles of households who could qualify for every grant program I 
work on and those who must be worth 10 or 15 times our thresholds. That 
doesn't happen every day in American neighborhoods.

I think the trickier part is remembering to keep reaching out and not let 
one's community become an enclave.  I am strongly in Scott Peck's camp on 
this - any group whose membership boundary is difficult or impermeable is not 
and acannot be a community.  Such a group is an enclave.  To be a community, 
to Peck and to me, is to be inclusive in theory and practice.  Incidentally, 
I had discussions along these lines with several black prospective members 
along the way.  None of them joined - and I still feel this as a boundary 
problem to be solved:  I live in a city with a large black middle class and 
no black cohousing neighbors, despite interest from several households. Not 
that I know the way to do it - I do puzzle over it often.

On the work side, I have one local government staffer who is so intrigued 
with the cohousing neighborhood in her midst that she is working on helping 
another one get started.  Because she is using HUD grant funds (CDBG)some of 
the units will have to be affordable to households with lower incomes. The 
fair housing rules discussed here from time to time must be affirmatively 
enforced.  She can draw on HUD resources through the Partnership for 
Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) to try out some sustainable design and 
building techniques. (Actually, PATH is a multi-agency and National 
Association of Homebuilders effort that has showcased several cohousing 
neighborhoods in its publications) 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that all is not lost. Cohousing is an idea 
that is changing people's minds and helping to changing housing patterns in 
the U.S.  Just maybe more slowly than you'd hoped.  Keep pushing.

Jessie Handforth Kome
Eno Commons
Durham, NC
Where we're working on finding another good neighbor to buy a three bedroom 
house kitty-corner across the pedway from me. We're also about to have a 
design charrette to update our site plan, design our pedway and some 
drainage, and eat lots of good food together.