Cohousing-L Mailing List: New Home Developments

[Jasmine Gold (juturna]

Hi,

My name is Jasmine Gold from PERCH (cohousing in the Silicon Valley/San 
Francisco
Bay Area south peninsula area). Because land prices are so high here and land is
so scarce, Kathy Kelly (formerly from Sonora Cohousing in Tucson) and I have
started looking into the alternative of buying into a new home development with 
a
community-oriented layout and turning it into cohousing. I found a new 
development
in Mountain View. Most of it seems just like cohousing to me except for the lack
of common house and the large home size:

In the center is one large oval shaped courtyard. There are 23 homes (5
fourplexes, one triplex) that have their front doors facing it. There is a path
around it. There appear to be ample front yards to the homes as well as narrow
backyards between the garages.  On one of the narrow ends  of the oval, two 
paths
lead off. One has another fourplex on it. The other has two fourplexes facing
eachother. Both of these are easily part of the same community layout. The only
vehicle road goes around the back of these 35 homes. There are another 12 homes
(four duplexes, one fourplex) on the other side of the road which are isolated
from the rest of the community making a total of 47 homes on approximately 4.5
acres. Cost is in the low $400,000's for 2 and 3 bedroom homes around
1550-1630 square feet.

I am interested in hearing from people who:1. might be interested in joining us
2. can give us advice on low cost common facilities we can add and other ways to
build community since it will probably be awhile before we can afford to build a
common house
3. have experience being a small group within a larger homeowner's association. 
I
am especially interested in getting an idea of how much of the complex we would
need to own in order to control the homeowner's association and put in common
facilities.

Thanks in advance,
Jasmine