Cohousing-L Mailing List: re: to develop or not to develop

[Buzz Burrell (72253.2101]

Rob wrote, in part:

>I disagree that the group needs to be developers at all to form
>community. I think that the best route to the future is to let
>developers be developers and do that work, and have faciliated community
>building happen amoung the residents, teach and learn group process and
>decision making, do the design input work, but leave ALL the ugly legal,
>permit, etc. details to other people and focus your group energy and
>learning to be a group and building a sense of trust and community and
>friendship amoung the group.
>
>Thoughts?

I remember replying to a similar message earlier in the year, but here 
goes again -

I agree completely that the Danish cohousing model contains inherent 
impracticalities.  The reason coho is happenning now is because there are 
a few hundred really dedicated, visionary people committed to a better 
future for themselves, their neighbors, and ultimatly the world.  
Overall, that's not very many people.  To echo Rob, virtually all my 
friends have heard of coho, think its a great idea, and quickly realize 
its too much effort.  I don't try and change their minds, because they 
have a good point.

Three years of meetings is an incredible effort considering you are going 
to spend the same or more amount of money in order to have a house with a 
tiny yard that looks almost exactly like every other one on the block.  
Sure you end up with great neighbors, but I've had pretty good community 
all my life without cohousing.   

That's why I don't reply to any of the marketing threads on the List - to 
me (who was a sales manager and marketing consultant for 4 years), 
marketing cohousing is energy mis-spent.  What we instead should be doing 
is improving the product;  then there would be no need for marketing;  
people would be beating down our doors.  Our product is our process, and 
it could use a lot of work.

So do I sound like a nay-sayer?  Well, I am.  Having been involved with 
entrepenurial events all my life, for me, taking an objective, realistic 
look at a situation and then inventing new solutions works, while the 
rah-rah approach doesn't.

Here are my off-hand suggestions for possible ways to improve the 
cohousing Results/Time Ratio:

1. Let a developer do the whole thing, give him/her your input while 
concentrating on pure community development, then move in when its done.  
(Nomad Cohousing in Boulder).

2. Use the Lot Development Model;  the community developes the property 
until its ready for construction, and then sells the lots to the members. 
 It's then up to them, which reduces the amount of group decisions and 
process required, without effecting the sense of community.  (Geneva 
Community outside Boulder).

3. Go small, do it with friends, eliminate much protocol.

4. Pick a site that doesn't require a #@*^! public hearing (called a 
Use-By-Right here).

5. Remodel a big house, buy contiguous houses on a block, or contiguous 
lots in a new subdivision.  (There is a meeting on attempting this very 
thing here in Boulder tomorrow night).

6. Somebody should be a trained facilitator.

7. Get lucky and have a good group with good fortunes (literally and 
figuratively).

I'm personally trying to Save The World less, and Save Buzz more.  Thus, 
I've questioned my involvement with coho a few times.  Meetings do not 
really nuture me, while being outdoors does.  However, our group embodies 
a few of the possibilities above, and thus it is worth it to me.  I hope 
many more people create new forms of cohousing, so it becomes worth it to 
them also.

Buzz Burrell
Geneva Community
Boulder, CO