Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Seeking advice on getting past idea stage

[R.N. Johnson (cohoranda]

My best advice would be not to focus on everyone's "dream" home, but to focus 
on the commonalities between you, and what people's "must haves" are.  You will 
never be able to fufill everyone's vision of their dream home, and can spend 
years trying to. The community I live in did not get serious until we had a 
group of people willing to step away from their vision of the perfect home, who 
were willing to focus on what was most important to us: living in community.  
Our "must haves" were affordability, easy access to public transportation, room 
for some community gardening, and location. Many of us had dreamed of a 
location that was more conducive to solar energy (only two of our buildings get 
enough sun), closer in to Santa Cruz, room for a large garden, but we decided 
that living in community now was more important than pursuing the dream of  a 
perfect community.  
When you decide what your vision is, you will lose some people whose vision is 
different, and find others.  The best example I have is a lovely community 
minded couple who left because they wanted us to promise that we would have 
fireplaces in the homes.  This was not a central value to most of us, and we 
would have never have gotten off the ground had we continued to try to include 
everything in our vision.
Good Luck!
Randa Johnson
New Brighton Cohousing
Aptos, CA


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