Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: vegan cohousing

[Stuart Staniford-Chen (stanifor]

Pam <ncdf [at] bitstream.net> wrote:
>
> I am also interested in folks perspectives on having that kind of
> lifestyle restriction in a cohousing unit.  It is pretty important to
> me, yet I don't like the idea of having a big old RULE, especially about
> something that is kind of outside the mainstream.
> but does anyone have experience with that kind of restriction in a
> cohousing setting (no meat, or no alcohol maybe).  I wonder about things
> like policing, and extending rules to visitors, or people who change
> their minds once they  have lived there.
>

I would think that the major challenge in trying to impose any kind of  
restriction like this is finding enough people interested.  It is usually  
quite hard to find enough people who meet all of the following  
conditions

        * Are willing and able to live in your geographic area
        * Can agree about the kind of neighborhood they want to live in.
        * Are passionate about cohousing
        * Can afford to live in it
        * Have personalities and skills appropriate to negotiating the
          process.

When you add to that an additional filter
        * Agree with a less common ideological position (such as
          veganism).

there are not, usually, going to be enough folks left to make a go of  
it.  The main hope, I think, is that your particular project is so  
exciting to some folks that a lot of them would move from out of town to  
do it.  But then you run into the problems of building enough trust and  
co-ordinating a project between many geographically separated people.

It seems a little tricky.  I wish you luck though.

Stuart Staniford-Chen
N St Cohousing
Cohousing Network Webmaster.