Development Phase of $ Commitment to Cohousing Community
From: elitalking (elitalkingrockbridge.net)
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 07:40:49 -0700 (PDT)

I am an architect in Lexington, VA. Last weekend I participated in a "Getting It Built (Cohousing)" Workshop in Nashville, TN with Katy McCamant and Chuck Durrett. It was interesting to see a Nashville group in the early stages of developing a vision of a cohousing community sufficient to risk investing money before the product is defined. In my mind, it brings up the question of what stage people commit to cohousing. In the early stages, there is no site. However, commitment is needed to secure a site for consideration. Early purchasers are more at risk than late purchasers. Also, there is a fairly lengthy group process that requires time, work, and emotional commitment with no guarantee of a result. I can believe it is enormously satisfying for a project to come to fruition having participated from the beginning. You have the most opportunity to shape the character of the community to meet the needs of your family. All through the development process, the vision becomes more defined and tangible, reducing the risk for purchaser, assuming the buyer is satisfied with the decisions made prior to his or her involvement. Then the project gets built and vacant units are sold to people who did not participate in the development process. They take less risk in that they know what they are buying and avoid the lengthy vulnerable group process to achieve the value. Some people purchase into cohousing from turnover where they also have some indications of the functionality of the community itself, with less risk and less opportunity to shape the community.



My hunch is that different personalities have different sensibilities about the trade offs between risk, lead time and interest in shaping the community.



One reason to form a group to develop cohousing is that this option does not exist in most communities.



I ask these questions because we have identified assets (land) in Virginia that we believe are suitable for developing cohousing. Each site has intrinsic strengths with specific potential occupants, (urban, rural, multi generation, seniors, et). Our interest is designing to achieve net zero performance, reduce auto use, and enhance neighborhood cohesion for mutual support. What if we developed a design build team and a design sufficient to define the price and product? Our interest is pre-selling, not speculating. However, developing a design and securing the land is a risk. We would also entertain the possibility of hosting a group process for developing our land. I sense that most the people on this list already are living in cohousing, and therefore are not in the market. However, I would really appreciate the reflections of those of you who have gone through this process and made your commitment to your communities a various stages of development and risk. What are the +- of making that commitment at various stages?



Thank you for reading my post.



B. Eli Fishpaw Architect

Lexington, VA 540-464-6778



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