Cohousing-L Mailing List: Density, etc.

[MartyR707 (MartyR707]

Hi Rob -
Thanks for your comments re my questions.  I can always count on you for some
helpful information.  Hope to meet you one of these days.  I would love to
come to the conference but I fear finances won't allow it this year.

To expand on one of my questions a bit:

<<*Do you suffer from too much community and wish for more privacy?  or
*Do you have too much privacy and wish you were closer together?
You said:
I find the community vs privacy mix to be just about right for me.  When
I want more community I go out front, when I want less I stay inside or 
go out back. My family sometimes does not attend community dinner and 
eats at home in order to have more family time.>>

I should have been a little more clear here.  I guess I should have asked, do
you find the proximity of houses *causing* community interaction.. and too
much or too little of that?  and conversely, if your houses are more spread
out, does that *prevent* community from happening or make people too
isolated?

It sounds like you're way less dense than we would be and yet your houses
don't sound all that far apart.  Are they clustered with lots of open space
around the edges?  We're looking at something like 4-6 units to the acre with
an additional 3 acres of open space that is separate.  A debate has erupted
about how close together we should be and how densely we should cover the
property - i.e. how many houses should we try to fit on the land.
Marty in Sonoma County