Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: New View time line for development

[Nancy Wight (wight]

I'm not sure I can remember exactly, but here goes (you other nerdviewers
- that's what we call our members with access to the net - please feel free 
to correct me).

We formed our core group in October of 1989 out of an umbrella group
that was formed in September of 1989.  We expanded our group, 
did lots of research, and began looking for a site after about 1 year.
We drew a semi-circle around Boston, about a 25 mile radius, and
began somewhat systematically to research each town in that radius.
We finally narrowed down our list of towns to about 6.

In the summer of 1991, after looking at many sites, we were seriously 
pursuing a site in Acton, but the owner (a bank in Chicago) would not sell 
it to us because they couldn't figure out what "us" was!  A local developer 
decided to buy the land and expressed interest in developing it for us.  
Unfortunately, he led us on for about 9-12 months, and actually had NO 
intention of doing cohousing (he finally offered to build us his ticky-tacky 
suburban houses from his cookie-cutter plans, each on it's own 1/2 acre lot!).
So we lost some time being snowed by a slimebag developer (If anyone out 
there has ever had good experience with a non-slimebag developer, I'd LOVE 
to hear about it! So far, I'm 0 for 5! - another topic for another day.)

Anyway, in the spring of 1992, we found an even more beautiful site in
the same town.  By now, we had already developed a relationship with
the town planners, etc., and decided that we wanted to stay in Acton.
It took us a year to complete the real estate deal, as it was very
complicated, and involved purchasing 3-4 parcels of land, each one
contingent upon the other deal going through, and it all contingent
upon us getting our necessary permits.

In summary, we will have been together 4 years this October, and since
we are building pretty much from scratch, and probably won't be able
to begin building until the 1994 spring thaw, we expect to have our entire
community moved in by late next fall - a total of 5 years.

- Nancy Wight
  New View Neighborhood Development

  p.s. Good topic, Judy!