Cohousing-L Mailing List: Definition of CoHo, Christians, etc.

[The CoHousing Company (coho]

I have to agree with Denise. Scott, I think living in Salt Lake City has
perverted your mind regarding Christians. I generally consider myself
Christian although I only go to churches to give slide presentations on
cohousing, and attend weddings and funerals. If I didn't already know you,
I'm not sure I would want to from the stuff you've been posting lately.

There are many christian groups who support broad diversity and speak out
strongly for human rights such as the Quakers and Unitarians and many
others . . .


Regarding comments I recieved re definition of CoHousing:

Rob stressed "a closer sense of community" which I agree is inherent in the
definition of cohousing as well as being primary goal of design.

Several people have commented that they feel "pedetrian-orientation" is
key--I agree it is key and I speak strongly for the advantages of
pedetrian-orientated design but it gets a little tricky in a specific
definition. How does Doyle Street or Cardiff Place fit into it? What about
Greyrock in Fort Collins where group decided to include ring road and many
attached garages, or Sharingwood which I beleive has a road to most/all (?)
of the (at least the original Phase I) houses and attached garages and does
it even have sidewalks???? (please correct me Rob). So I stand by leaving
it out of definition (although certainly a typical characteristic) and if
residents were involved in design and their intent was to create a strong
sense of community, and the community fits the rest of the definition--I'm
willing to call it cohousing even if they decided to include attached
garages and I don't like the design.


Tina commented re violating fair housing laws:

Luckily we have such laws and you are only officially allowed to
discriminate by age. Nevertheless, I think there is a large grey area
between encouraging/discouraging people to join your community by the core
values the group sets. Again, I have always been in favour of diversity
(although I think true diversity is much more difficult than most of us are
ready to fess up too), but I can understand that some people might want to
create a community with a narrower or  more clearly defined set of core
values than I would. . . .and if it still fit the rest of the
definition--I'd call it cohousing.

Katie from Doyle Street and


The CoHousing Company
"Architectural Design and Consulting Services towards the formation of
CoHousing Communities"
email: coho [at] cohousingco.com
web site: www.cohousingco.com
tel. 510-549-9980, fax 510-549-2140
1250 Addison St. #113
Berkeley, CA 94702