Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Role of professionals

[SPINTUS (SPINTUS]

In response to the various messages that have been sent on this topic as 
well as Mark Ottenberg's that started the thread---Mark was referring to 
the great work that he felt The Cohousing Center in Watertown, MA has 
provided for the Commonweal group.  I'd like to weigh in for the 
Cornerstone group, which is also using the services of The Cohousing 
Center.  Since I haven't been in a cohousing group not using this 
approach, I can't speak to the difficulties.  Abstractly though, I have 
no idea how I would approach cohousing if my group had to do all the site 
selection, architect selection, etc. all alone.  

The Cohousing Center is a group of professionals that are guiding several 
groups through the whole process, helping with marketing the concept of 
cohousing, helping interested people explore the various groups forming 
in the Boston area, providing site exploration services, help with 
approaching banks on financing, and providing professional architecture 
services.  They are not "doing" cohousing for us.  The groups are still 
directly involved in the process, but we are receiving professional 
advice from people who know the cohousing concept and are committed to 
helping it get started here.  In fact, all the principals in The Cohousing 
Center are actual members of one of Cornerstone or Commonweal.  Their 
help and advice has been invaluable to us.

Susan Pintus, Cornerstone