Cohousing-L Mailing List: Working with developer or using dev. consultants/possible site

[Shelly Demeo (shelldemeo]

hello--

 

There is a non-profit developer that has been interested in our group for a while and took me for a drive the other day and showed me a piece of property he has.  The group is excited about the location and the site would be ideal.

 

He develops mostly senior housing in the non-profit and for profit sector.  He also works for Community Renewal Team, an anti-poverty agency in Hartford part-time in developing housing for them.  He used to work for a huge development firm here in CT called Konover.  Within the last year, he started his own non-profit development corp.

 

We have actually known this developer for a while (whose name is Shelly too).  Early on, we hired a cohousing development consultant for a four month/10,000K contract to help us focus on cohousing development, do pro forma, narrow towns, evalute sites, etc.  He helped us a lot and is a great person.  Our group likes him a lot.  He is also a builder and the group was definitely thinking of him building the project.

 

During the four month contract period, our cohousing consultant met with Shelly (the developer) to see if Konover would develop our project.  Nobody from the group was at that meeting, but the gyst of it was that the profit margin was too low.  This meeting happened about a year ago.  Our group was disappointed.

 

Well, basically the contract ended six months ago and our cohousing consultant is still investigating land pieces that the group brings to him.  He says that he likes this work and he wants to continue doing it for free. We haven't been too successful in finding anything.  MLS stuff is not great and overpriced.  I personally am feeling a sense of growing obligation because of the work he has been doing.

 

Now we are in a situation where we have a piece of land that the group is excited about, a developer who has seen our pro forma that wants to develop our cohousing community on this site...BUT he is saying the profit margin is too low to have the cohousing consultant AND him involved.  He also wants to build it modular so having our consultant build the project might not work.

 

Two quick questions..

 

1.  Has anyone been in this situation where they had to not continue with a development consultant and self develop and instead went with a developer?  Is there a WIN/WIN scenario out there for having a cohousing professional and developer?

 

2.  If we choose to work with this developer, who would negotiate for us from a "cohousing" perspective?  Our lawyer?

 

It seems scary doing this without our consultant there holding our hands...but to have a local developer wanting to do our project and showing us a good site seems like something we should explore further. 

 

Thanks again for input.

 

Shelly DeMeo

Greater Hartford Cohousing