Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Lot Development Model

[Stuart Staniford-Chen (stanifor]

Buzz Burrell writes:

<advocacy for LDM and accusations that "Danish model" is "socialistic"  
(deadly sin) deleted>

It seems to me that a major factor in the decision whether to build all  
the lots out individually, or all at once is going to be cost.  If  
everyone buys their own lot, hires their own architect, and builds their  
own place, the average house cost is going to be quite a bit higher than  
if all the houses are built at the same time to the same plan (or one of a  
few variants).  There are obviously a lot of economies of scale in  
designing and building houses, as with anything else.

Thus there is a trade-off between the group's need to have cheaper houses,  
and their need to have a wide diversity of houses to suit their own taste.   
Different groups will certainly fall in different places in this tradeoff. 


My own experience of living in a close-knit cohousing community is the  
following - you want to be close to your neighbours so that you casually  
interact with them all the time.  If I'm in my back yard, and my neighbour  
is in hers, we are much more likely to talk if we are close enough that we  
don't have to walk over to do it.  If the Lot Development Model means  
large houses on big lots, then I think the benefits of community life will  
be much enervated.  I don't think it has to mean that, but I suspect it  
might in some cases.

I'm also curious how the process of custom home building will interact  
with group formation.  Custom home building is famously stressful - the  
advice I have heard for couples is not to attempt it unless you are  
certain your relationship is rock solid.  Can people involved in this also  
invest a lot of time in the group process needed to start a community?   
How will the community be different as a result of the different process  
at the start?  (I'm not stating a position, just wondering).

I wish Geneva community the best of luck.

Stuart.

(Actually I have this fantasy: the guy who owns the house next to me  
(which is not part of our community) never does any maintenance at all on  
it.  Nothing.  Ever.  So one of these decades, I figure, the thing has  
just got to fall down.  Then we could buy it and build a passive solar,  
straw-bale, partially earth-sheltered custom house amidst all the cheap  
nasty ranch houses in this area. :-)


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart Staniford-Chen           |       Dept of Computer Science
stanifor [at] cs.ucdavis.edu            |       UC Davis, Davis, CA 95616
(916) 752-2149  - work          |               and
(916) 756-8697  - home          |       N St. Cohousing Community
Home page is http://everest.cs.ucdavis.edu/~stanifor/home.html