Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Bootstrapping a community: alternatives to building?

[Alice Alexander (alicecohous]

I want to echo Ann's good comments and suggestions (Ann is such a great
resource for all of us), and also applauding your efforts Jonathan in
considering new avenues for development.

You might find this recent blog interesting from Alan O'Hashi,
Collaborative Community: Layering Coho Cultural Fabric over Mixed Use
Community in Cheyenne <http://www.cohousing.org/node/4378>

This exploration of different avenues for development will be addressed at
the 2017 National Cohousing Conference, including retrofit and mixed use,
and "when the developer leads the way," so please join us!
Alice Alexander, Coho/US Executive Director

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 8:29 PM, Ann Zabaldo <zabaldo [at] earthlink.net> wrote:

>
> Jonathan —
>
> I suggest looking at the Boulder Creek Community in Boulder, CO.  You can
> get their info in the directory on Cohousing.org website.  Their community
> is a combination of people who have rented in the same condo complex as
> well as non-residential members.
>
> I also suggest looking at the examples of retrofit cohousing.  This is a
> process in which individuals buy up housing on a single block or in
> proximity to each other.  N Street Cohousing is the grandaddy of this
> example.  Temescal Creek in CA is one of the loveliest examples of retrofit
> cohousing.  (I’m sure there are many others equally as lovely — I just
> haven’t seen them all!)  Again, you can get contact info for these two
> communities via the Directory on Cohousing.org
>
> In many areas of the country the cost of development is quite dear.  In
> “hot” markets such as DC, trying to find a building site is a long term
> adventure.  We need more accessible ways to develop cohousing keeping the
> criteria for cohousing very clear. I applaud your investigating new avenues
> of development.
>
>
> Best --
>
> Ann Zabaldo
> Takoma Village Cohousing
> Washington, DC
> Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
> Falls Church, VA
> 202.546.4654
>
> A friend recently told me I was delusional.  I nearly fell off my unicorn.
>
>
> > On Nov 3, 2016, at 7:26 PM, Jonathan Kallay <yoni [at] kallay.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Some of you may know that I'm trying to form a new community on
> Seattle's Eastside. I'm also generally interested in exploring ways to
> increase the scalability of cohousing. The fact that forming new
> communities seems to require amateurs to get into the real-estate
> development business seems to be a serious obstacle, so I'd like to know if
> anyone has any experience with, knowledge of, or thoughts about cohousing
> communities that don't build their own facilities. In particular, as
> mixed-use buildings become more common, it seems reasonable to bootstrap a
> community in one by occupying its residential units and part of its
> commercial space for the common house. For the sake of argument, let's
> suppose that all of the residential units are leased as a block from the
> pre-existing property management and re-let to the members, with dues for
> the common house added on top.
> >
> >
> > In asking the question, I'd prefer to side-step the question of whether
> this fits into a definition of cohousing (the fact that there might be a
> third party owning and managing the facilities would disqualify it
> according to Ty Albright's rubric, but that's a semantic challenge rather
> than a logistical one).
> >
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> >
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> >
>
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-- 
Alice Alexander
Executive Director
http://www.cohousing.org
[image: The Cohousing Association]