Cohousing-L Mailing List: Development Manager Evaluation & Contracts

[Thomas Lofft (tlofft]

Diana, et al.:
 
I suggest you try to contact members at Hundredfold Farm, Ortanna, PA. about 
their challenges with a development manager as a venture partner in a cohousing 
project to get an outline of all the things that can be promised and not 
delivered by an inexperienced or incapable manager.
 
Inevitably, Murphy's law does prevail, everything can go wrong, including 
things that are beyond either party's control, and even daily verbal assurances 
will never be supportable in court in the event that you have to seek 
resolution of differences through litigation.
 
I just completed the development and construction management of a school and 
the negotiation of the AIA contract amendments with the design-builder took 
longer than the design period, but in the long run, they served us well in 
determining in the light of differing opinion exactly who was liable for errors 
in construction, demolition, and replacements.
 
Cheers & Best Wishes,
 
Tom Lofft
Development Manager at
Liberty Village. MD
 
 
RE: Cohousing: How have others done it?
To: "cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
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At the Durham Central Park Cohousing Community (http://durhamcoho.com), we are 
currently in the process of selecting a development manager for our project. 
We've interviewed multiple folks that would love to have our business, but they 
(and we) are a little uncertain about how exactly to draft the terms of such an 
agreement.
 
Would folks in other communities share their experiences with this part of 
creating a cohousing community? We've read Ann Zabaldo's blurb on Romancing the 
Developer at http://www.secondjourney.org/itin/2010Spr/Zabaldo_2010Spr.htm and 
find that it makes a lot of sense but could use some suggestions on how this 
translates into a development manager contract (where it's our money rather 
than the developer's that is at risk).
 
-Diana Fox

Thanks for writing.
Tom