Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Tom Ponessa's posting on cohousing in Canada

[Bob Morrison (morrison]

  I would like to thank Tom for posting this. It is one of the best articles I
have seen on what is IMO one of the main reasons for doing cohousing: that it
frees people from the tyranny of designs forced on them by developers. The
posting also shows how much we (U.S.) have in common with Canada, or at least
with Ontario, re the reasons for building cohousing and the problems that
people encounter when doing so.
  Here in the U.S., people who are in the market for single-family housing can
gain some control over the design if they are willing to spend a little more
money and a LOT more time than they would if they bought an equivalent house
(in terms of house size, lot size, and location) built to a developer's specs.
I got the impression from this posting that "building your own house" is more
difficult in Ontario than in the U.S.
  The article also did a good job of showing the warped logic that developers
use to make them think that their "canned" designs are what the public wants.

Bob