Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Water Usage

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

I guess what I'm saying is that it seems to me that the metrics for typical
developments probably do apply, at least insofar as the common house does
not increase usage. (Mind you I haven't researched the subject; other
people who have may weigh in with contradictory evidence of course!)

We convinced ourselves and the town that we would use less parking/have
fewer cars and would also have fewer kids in the school system. This didn't
turn out to be true, or at least not as true as we had hoped. If I had it
to do over again, I would have suggested that we not be so optimistic that
cohousing was "special" in regards to use of natural and community
resources. I suspect we do use less water due to less square acreage of
lawns compared to an equal number of single family houses, but other than
that, my gut tells me we aren't that different from our neighbors in terms
of our impact on our neighborhood.

On Sat, Nov 30, 2024 at 1:36 PM Joel Bartlett <altairecovillage [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> Diane,
>
> Thank you for your considerations - this is all useful for us.  The fiscal
> and traffic impacts are important to the town, as well as the various
> energy impacts.  With only ten members, it's difficult to project car
> usage, etc. so we're kind of flying blind.
>
> Yours, Joel
>
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2024 at 10:19 AM Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I can't offer any specific answer as we (Mosaic Commons in central MA)
> > don't meter our CH water usage (or any other water usage) separately.
> But I
> > don't really understand why you would measure water use by building
> rather
> > than by person? It seems to me that water usage won't be different if a
> > person is doing their laundry in the CH vs. if they were doing it at
> home,
> > or hosting a guest who takes showers and uses the toilet in the CH rather
> > than hosting that guest at someone's home. If 10 households come to a
> > common meal, that is 10 households who would otherwise be preparing a
> meal
> > at home, and thereby using up water.
> >
> > When we were doing our projections for developing our community and
> trying
> > to predict usage of water or other utilities, use of roads, use of local
> > schools or any other resource, the town was mostly concerned with total
> > number of bedrooms, as a rough proxy for number of people, because that's
> > the gating factor for how much natural or community resources we will
> use.
> > (As a result, we had to specifically agree to having our otherwise lovely
> > attics NOT be used as living space, because more living space -> more
> > people (in theory) -> more resource usage.)
> >
> > Diana
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 29, 2024 at 11:13 AM Joel Bartlett <
> altairecovillage [at] gmail.com
> > >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > We at Altair EcoVillage (Philadelphia area) need to compare our
> > > project with what a typical development would have.  The Common House
> is
> > > not "common" to most developments, so it presents a special case.  We
> > > certainly have to add it in to the overall water usage of the community
> > if
> > > we are doing an honest comparison.
> > >
> > > So, does anyone have any water usage records we can start with?  Our
> > > assumptions:
> > > -two laundry machines
> > > -three guest rooms
> > > -community meals three times a week
> > > -public meetings once a week
> > > -high-speed dishwasher
> > > -main floor rest rooms
> > >
> > > Anyone care to take a shot at this?
> > >
> > > Thank you in advance,
> > > Joel Bartlett, R/A
> > > Project Manager for the Members
> > > _________________________________________________________________
> > > Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> > > http://L.cohousing.org/info
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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> >
> >
> >
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