RE: Re: IT ISN'T COHOUSING IF IT AIN'T GOT THAT CO
From: Lashbrook, Stephan (lashbrookci.wilsonville.or.us)
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:32:01 -0600 (MDT)
Good comments, Kevin.

If it works, it works; whatever it is.

Stephan



-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Wolf [mailto:kjwolf [at] dcn.davis.ca.us]
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 2:38 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_Re: IT ISN'T COHOUSING IF IT AIN'T GOT THAT CO


Hi all,

Chuck's letter about the need for the future residents to be involved in 
the design for a community to be called cohousing has me thinking.  One of 
his basic tenets follows M. Scott Peck's main thesis about community.  For 
true community to form, the members need to go through a crisis and 
confrontation and expose their mutual vulnerabilities.  The design of 
cohousing by its future residents invariably creates opportunities for 
crisis, confrontation and vulnerability.  Thus when the design is complete 
and the residents move in, the residents have become a true community.

But here is the rub.  In Muir Commons, one of the oldest cohousing 
communities in the country, about 75% of its residents weren't there when 
it began.  What happens when it becomes 100%.  Does this mean it no longer 
is cohousing?

Or what about N Street?.  We didn't design our houses or our community 
layout. It was all determined by the developers in 1955.  Since the first 
fence was torn down in 1986 and we began eating meals in a common space in 
1989, we have gone through numerous decision making episodes where we had 
crisis, confrontation and exposed vulnerabilities.  This helped bind many 
of us together.  But because we have a lot of turnover through rentals 
changes and sales, only six households have members who have been here for 
ten years or more and only two households have original members.  Does all 
this mean we can't claim to be a cohousing community?

I am now involved in helping developed a hybrid retrofit/developed 
cohousing community in the Sierra foothills.  I don't intend to live there 
though I may have a granny flat to share time there when my wife and I 
retire in 15-20 years or so.  Right now, only one of the main partners 
plans on living there.  This next year we intend to build five units to add 
to the one that is there now and rent them to prospective members.  In 
three or four years, we expect that another 4-6 units will be built along 
with the common house.  Within 6-10 years we anticipate all 16-20 units 
being built.  But we will likely be deciding many of the major design 
issues without these future residents.  Does this mean that what is 
eventually created there won't be a cohousing community because there 
future residents won't be involved with many of the design decisions?

Here is my thesis.

Cohousing is design and most any good architect who studies such 
communities can craft a design that works. (If you believe that residents 
have to design it to be a workable cohousing, come to N Street and we will 
show by example that this doesn't have to be.)

Community is key to cohousing and you don't have to have a great design to 
create a wonderful community.

Chuck is right that the resident-driven design process creates 
community.  But community can be created without this.

My experience in living for 25 years in co-op housing and at N Street is 
that good community comes from common principles, values, and goals and a 
willingness to eat, work and play together.  When 25 families all move in 
together into a non-resident developed "cohousing" complex, community is 
hugely difficult to form because there was no way for those 25 to have 
common goals, values, and principles.  When the residents design it, they 
weed out prospective members without these commonalities, or they likely 
fail to ever get the cohousing completed.

N Street works so well because almost everyone who has ever lived here for 
a long time has gone through a screening process where they rented a room 
before gaining permanent status.  A percentage of them leave soon after 
arriving or when their lease is up, because they find they do not fit 
in.  If they had bought the house they moved into, they would have a much 
more difficult time leaving.  When people move in, they know how we work, 
what is expected of them, and what values we have as a community.

Thus in the new cohousing community some of us are working to create, we 
will use the same processes that have worked well at N Street. People can 
rent before they buy.  The goals, values and principles will be set before 
they move in.  If they don't like them, they shouldn't move in and attempt 
to change them.    There will be plenty of opportunity over the years for 
the crises, confrontations and vulnerabilities to occur to bind them as a 
community.  It just won't be through the initial design process.

In the end, just like Muir Commons will  likely continue to be cohousing 
long after all the original owners have moved on and just like N Street is 
now, the "developer" designed community I am helping develop in the 
foothills will be a cohousing community because it will follow the 
architectural principles of cohousing, and it will have members who share 
common values and care about, help and like being with each other.

Kevin




****************
Kevin Wolf
N Street Cohousing Community member
724 N St, Davis, CA  95616
530-758-4211
kjwolf [at] dcn.davis.ca.us

To download my facilitation manual or other material on
consensus decision making, visit www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/kjwolf

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