Cohousing-L Mailing List: re: condo community

[Collaborative Housing Society (cohosoc]

Bob, it seems to me that the root of your problem is that there is nothing
there to belong to.  As you've already seen with your defunct club room,
just having the facilities and equipment isn't enough:  you need to create
an environment that makes joining in with neighbours a desirable,
enjoyable, beneficial and, dare I say, natural thing to do.

However, at least 50% of the owners of this project don't even live there,
and those that do pawn off the running of the place to a managment
corporation.  It is most likely that the majority of the stakeholders in
this project have investment value as their first priority, with quality of
life (community) way down that list, if it makes it at all.  Therefore, any
decision, especially for more equipment and facilities, is only going to be
judged by how it affects the investment.  To top it off is the climate of
looming rehab. expenses in the near future.

Another issue is that, in much the same way that we now tend to deal with
our neighbours through an intermediary - the police or the courts, the
presence of the  managment company only serves to derail any chance of
neighbourly interaction, even the basic getting together to gripe about the
state of repairs, for example.

In other words, you live in a microcosm of the world that many of us find
ourselves in, with the forces keeping us apart even more evident and more
invasive, though perhaps, therefore, more understandable, and more likely
to be dealt with.

To that end, I would suggest that the community garden idea is probably
the most acheivable, as a place that should offer a natural magnet for
people, chatting and so on   I can't see how it could cost much money, but
I would also ask whether it really is necesssary for every household to
contribute to it - all you really need is permission (admittedly, this may
be hard to come by) then let the people who want to garden carry the costs.

Along this line, I would suggest a couple of things.  Don't worry about
trying to get the whole 200 units together in community any more than
you'd try to get a whole town or subdivision together.  Work on building
the interactions that make community one neighbour at a time.  I'm sure
you are already open and friendly with the neighbours you happen to run
into - see if any of them would like to join you in a picnic of your own.
Maybe you'll only get three people out to the first one, but perhaps that
will turn into 15 for the next, and so on.  Spreading news by word-of-
mouth is a great community builder, in that it requires face-to-face
contact, enabling the familiarizing, recognition and identification that
newsletters shoved in a door can't do.

This isn't to say that newsletters aren't a bad idea, as is a bulletin board
- surely someone could donate a board to be put up in the laundry room, or
next to the underused club house.  In the end, I believe that community
has to be something that people want to join - the N-Street model is the
best precedent I can think of.  I also wonder if some sort of case could be
made to the trustees/board that making this a good community to live in
will only enhance the investment value of the individual properties.  It
might be a tough sell at first, but putting your concerns in a language your
"opposition" understand might help you win them over, and make your
home a better community to boot.

Russell Mawby
Collaborative Housing Society - Toronto
cohosoc [at] web.apc.org