Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Help/re: common house use

[John Major (jmajor]

Certainly one useful point to make about CoHo Common Houses is that
they may sound like the familiar "community center" that your
neighbors might have in mind, with publicized events ocurring at
irregular intervals, generating lots of traffic. But in reality, the
VAST majority of common house use in CoHo is pedestrian, on a daily
basis, and very low-key ("show up for dinner"). It sounds like you
have to correct some fearful misapprehensions here... Or you may have
to make the point to the City Council members that neighbors are
against your development for other reasons, and are just
misrepresenting the nature of it to manipulate them...

If traffic is still a big issue, Nyland has some real data, I
believe, that shows that CoHo actually *decreased* the car trips that
the households made.

Sigh - it is incredible to me that CoHo has to fight these battles.
Have you already done the prescribed "talk to your neighbors, one on
one" go-around that the old hands have said is necessary when you
meet resistance?  We have only done some "spot work" there, but it
has helped alleviate neighbors fears. Actually, the most effective
session we had was one that the Neighborhood Council sprung on us as
a "surprise attack" - inviting only the City Planning staff and not
us. But we heard about it that night and showed up anyway. Sitting in
the audience, I was able to reply to people's questions in a
reasonable way until finally the ranters' own friends were telling
them to shut up.

Well, good luck to you - 

John Major
Wasatch CoHousing
jmajor [at] mhz.com