Cohousing-L Mailing List: Working with local governments rezone: setbacks

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

I agree with Jerry and would also add that the more you get to know the 
players in the game, the better your odds of success will be.  
Attending various planning board meetings is great. I would go one 
level higher than this and get on their agenda, do a brief 
presentation, with handouts, as to why cohousing is really great.  You 
might still be able to buy a case of the old cohousing books from the 
Cohousing Company for $40, in which case do so and hand out books to 
all of them.

With luck, doing this you will build an advocate for cohousing on the 
planning board.  Citizen involvement in these sorts of boards and such 
is greatly sought after.  I attended three such meetings in a row and 
was asked to join the planning commission, since that particular 
governmental body was chronically short of help and interest.  I 
declined given that my second child was about to be born, but I was 
known to those folks, as the "cohousing guy" and the chairman of that 
board read the book, got totally inspired and applied some of the ideas 
to other projects which came before the board.  A couple years later I 
heard that this guy got a local developer to create pedestrian fronts 
and a commons in his project by giving him the cohousing book, maybe 
the same one I gave him......Each one, reach one and the circle grows....

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood