Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: affordable urban cohousing for artists?

[Philip Proefrock (psp]

Quoting cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org:

> Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:28:25 -0400
> From: Ed Stauff <ed [at] mewsic.com>
> Subject: [C-L]_ affordable urban cohousing for artists?
> 
...
> possibility of starting a new cohousing group.
> 
> This new coho development would target artists (both performing and fine 
> arts) and craftspeople, either part-time amateurs or full-time 
> professionals.  A primary goal would be to make it truly affordable for 
...
> Right now I'm looking for information regarding the following issues:
> 
> 1. Has anyone tried this sort of thing, either successfully or 
> unsuccessfully?
> 
> 2. Does anyone know of funding sources for removal of toxic waste?  I 
> see this as the problem most likely to kill a prospective site.


This sounds like an intriguing project.  When I read your description of it, I
immediately thought of Acme Artists Community in Chicago.  The program sounds
very similar.  These links can get you started on finding out about them:

 http://directory.ic.org/records/?action=view&page=view&record_id=2571

 http://www.nnwac.org/

As to the toxic site cleanup, there are state and federal grants for brownfield
redevelopment abd remediation, but they can often be daunting, even to
commercial developers.  There is a project less than a mile from my house that
is intended to revitalize an abandoned retail plaza and clean up a plume of
contamination in the soil from an old dry cleaner that was there many years
ago.  This project has been sitting for more than four years because of the
complicated nature of the project.  They are dealing with state funds as well
as a city bond in order to do the cleanup and the development, and nothing has
been done yet.

I wouldn't think that a contaminated site would be a good choice because of all
the additional cost and preparatory work that would be required.  Obtaining
grants could help with some of the cost, but it will still be more expensive and
take longer than a project without such complications.

Philip Proefrock

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