Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Controversy over attached garages

[Hungerford, David (dghungerford]

Garages are used by most people for many things other than parking cars or 
providing workshop space.  Before you give up the space/uses a garage 
provides, then make sure those needs are met in some other way(e.g. where 
will your dog hang out during the rainy season? will their be common space 
for storing the third seat out of your mini-van?  where are you going to put 
the 1986 financial records?, or that bike your toddler will grow into when 
they're 9 (answer, get rid of it a buy another one in a few years . . . a 
real environmentally sound solution.)  Are you willing to look at everybody 
elses junk hanging around their back yards (your stuff is junk and my junk is 
stuff.) 

For those in the "I hate cars so I their garages, too" camp:  Are you 
absolutely sure that not allowing someone to have a garage is going to 
contribute to a reduction in the amount of driving that person does?  Are 
they going to be better neighbors, or more sociable, because they have to 
haul their groceries and screaming two-year-old through the snow in a Radio 
Flyer?  Is it okay for your moral position to be imposed on someone else?

David Hungerford
living in Muir Commons without a garage for three years now
dghungerford [at] ucdavis.edu