Cohousing-L Mailing List: Congratulations Delaware Street Commons (Lawrence, KS) and call to action in comments

[Raines Cohen (rc3-coho-L]

Congrats on near-completion and on being featured in a major way in  
the Lawrence Journal, with big photo and all, prominently in the  
'local news' section and at the top of the home page (I'd love to  
know where it ended up in print).

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/apr/27/cohousing_community_kicks/

or in shorter form, in case that cuts off:

http://tinyurl.com/yqajpr

The first reader comment (by someone who posts several acerbic  
comments a day) so far is negative; perhaps Coho-L readers with  
alternative perspectives on living in and building community could  
pop over and add notes to counter that? Read on for details.

Here's how it leads:

> The planned community is no longer just a plan.
>
> After nearly a decade of groundwork and about 10 months of  
> construction, the members of Delaware Street Commons, a new “co- 
> housing” community in East Lawrence, are ready to show off their  
> homes to the public. The $3.7 million complex in the 1200 block of  
> Delaware Street will be on display this weekend and next weekend  
> during the annual Spring Parade of Homes sponsored by the Lawrence  
> Home Builders Association.

> Of the 45 stops on the parade, this is the only one built around  
> ideals of communal living space, shared chores, low environmental  
> impact and government by consensus for multiple families.

The article highlights the uniqueness of the project in the region,  
the contrast with stereotypes of "co-" anything, and the green aspects:

> Environmental architect Kirk Gastinger designed the community,  
> which has environmentally friendly touches throughout, including  
> heat pumps for each home, bamboo floors, energy-efficient light  
> bulbs and structured insulated panels used in the roofs of the  
> buildings.

It's great to see a the group persevere after struggling for years to  
get the project underway. Self-development can be very hard.

The article has no link to the group or cohousing.org, but I imagine  
people can find 'em.. it's a small town! (and a lovely one... Betsy  
and I visited the site a couple of years ago while on a cross-country  
trip staying in cohousing nearly every night. Once the Lawrence and  
St. Louis (Metro Cohousing at Culver Way) communities are up and  
running, it will be possible to drive from Boston to San Francisco,  
staying in a cohousing guest room every night).

Here's the Delaware Street Commons (DSC) website:
http://www.delaware-street.com/

I spy with my search-results eye that the Lawrence Chamber of  
Commerce is listing your May 8 ribbon-cutting as well. Perhaps you  
can say a little about how you got them involved? Is the group or its  
construction company a member?

It's also great to see DSC blogging... have you been tracking stats  
and how people find the group enough to say whether this technique is  
effective for outreach and member communication? I sure know it helps  
me to point to to talk about the construction process and timeline,  
as a good real-world educational tool:

http://builddsc.blogspot.com/

Now for the part where Coho-L readers can help: The initial comment,  
made by an early-riser frequent commenter, is unnecessarily negative:

> "government by consensus for multiple families"
>
> Ugh. So decisions will be watered down to "make everyone  
> comfortable", there will be no leadership able to be shown, and  
> plenty of infighting. I have participated in many decision making  
> processes involving consensus and not one has worked out.  
> Representative democracy works best.
>
> Prediction: This arrangement will fail because the people who would  
> most like to live this way have no money. I hope I'm wrong.

The last part is actually hopeful (making me wonder whether this  
person is paid by the newspaper to create controversy and attention  
around articles). But I imagine it would help the group to have some  
more comments posted about the power of consensus, how it is not  
about compromise, the role of leadership in cohousing, and the  
training we get in conflict resolution/prevention and effective  
decision making, as well as the track record of nearly 100  
communities built and operating successfully. Scroll down below the  
blue box to respond.

To respond, you may need to create an account (click "Sign In" in the  
upper left corner of the article web page and be patient, it can be  
slow to load, then click create account, fill in your email address,  
and wait for the confirmation message, and then click the link in the  
email to confirm your account and create a username, I had to reload  
that page to get it to show). If you type a long comment, be sure to  
copy and paste before submitting to make sure you don't lose it, and  
don't forget to press "Post Comment" again on the preview page to get  
it to actually submit. Perhaps share your comment here if you think  
it adds to the conversation. Here's mine:

> Congratulations Delaware Street Commons! I visited the site a  
> couple of years ago while passing through town, and I'm delighted  
> to see you've made it (nearly) through construction after a long  
> planning process. I'm looking forward to the completion of the  
> community; when your neighborhood and the St. Louis community  
> (Metro Cohousing at Culver Way) are complete, it will be possible  
> to drive from Boston to San Francisco and visit a cohousing  
> community every day.
>
> I can understand the first commenter's concerns; I had similar  
> concerns when I first heard of the concept.
>
> However, now that I've been part of creating one cohousing  
> community and lived at two and visited more than 60 of the nearly  
> 100 built in the U.S. (at least 100 more are under development), I  
> have to say: consensus works, it delivers results.
>
> It's not about compromise, but about finding solutions that  
> everyone can live with, incorporating the wisdom of the entire  
> group. Informal leadership does emerge, but the role of the  
> facilitator is not to dominate the conversation but rather to help  
> the group listen to one another and sometimes come up with an end  
> result far better than anyone individually can come up with.
>
> Rather than 'infighting', cohousing neighborhoods get training in  
> effective communication skills and conflict resolution, so that  
> they can respectfully agree to disagree and learn from one another.  
> It's not about finding something that everyone agrees with, just  
> finding a way that people feel meets needs.
>
> In my experience, plenty of people at all income levels want to  
> live this way; surveys have found that many people living in  
> cohousing have advanced degrees, and while some are first-time  
> homebuyers, others are downsizing from bigger homes, to live more  
> sustainably through community, enjoy greater quality of life and  
> common space per dollar spent, to slow down and appreciate the  
> places we live and the wonderful neighbors we have.
>
> I predict that the community will thrive; the first U.S. cohousing  
> neighborhoods were started more than a decade and a half ago, and  
> all that have embraced this model are still at it, watching out for  
> their neighbors (kind of like small towns/villages of decades ago),  
> enjoying privacy plus community, and seeing property values more  
> than double in five years in some cases.
>
> For more info on the national cohousing movement, see the Cohousing  
> Association of the United States website, http://www.cohousing.org/

Raines (salivating at new-home unit prices starting at $145,000, and  
admiring the efficiency of 5-plexes in a cooler/hotter climate, as a  
Certified Green Building Professional)
Cohousing Coach, Planning for Sustainable Communities
Berkeley (CA) Cohousing
off to a facilitation-training intensive workshop at Nevada City (CA)  
cohousing