Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Converting existing housing to Cohousing

[Fred H Olson WB0YQM (fholson]

On Tue, 3 May 94 14:34 CDT, 
Stephen Hawthorne  <hawthorn [at] acpub.duke.edu> wrote:

>Fred:  Who owns the alley?  We had some luck in closing undeveloped city
>right of ways in our neighborhood by requesting the city to deed over the
>right of way to the bordering property owners.  Could you get the alley
>closed or deeded over to your group or the current residents?
>
>Stephen Hawthorne
>Blue Heron Partners
>Chatham County, NC

Closing the alley involves a number of issues but generally if adjacent
owners agree we would expect to get it vacated and the alley would revert
to the adjacent landowner (split down the middle).  We dont anticipate
removing the concrete at least initially and would probably keep
it useable for emergency (fire) and utility access.

There is timing problem associated with the alley.  Many of us feel
vacating the alley is a key item for the project and would be reluctant
to buy property on the block before we were assured that the alley was to 
be closed.  On the other hand, until we own the properties the alley
cant be closed.  So we need to get assurances that if the properties 
are acquired it will be closed and the purchase agreements on the
houses will probably be contingent on acquiring all the others.
It gets to be a big problem to orchestrate.

jmetzler [at] aol.com wrote:
>You might also look to the Dutch concept of the "Woonerf" as a 
>designed place which allows both people and cars to coexist safely.  
>If you needed to retain the alley, the concepts could be used to treat it 
>more as a pedestrian domain where automobiles were clearly 
>visitors needing to be on their best behavior.  

Interesting.  I think I have heard of something like this but hadn't 
thought of it in relation to our proposal for Andersen Lane.  Indeed the 
alternate way to deal with cars is a problem.
--
Fred H. Olson   fholson [at] uci.com     Sysop of COHOUSING-L mailing list
1221 Russell Av N; Minneapolis, MN 55411        voice: (612) 588-9532
WB0YQM  146.64 MHz with DTMF Selcall: 233 ;        FAX by arrangement