Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Public access through community

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

At RoseWind Cohousing in Port Townsend Washington, we designed 
public-access pathways clear across our irregularly-shaped 9 acre 
property-- the length of the principal path is roughly 4-5  blocks, and 
there are several other paths which, though not officially public 
right-of-way, are regularly used by pedestrians and bicyclists. 

We did a Planned Unit Development, and had to make a convincing argument 
for vacating (thus rendering unusable in the future) many blocks of 
right-of-way which the City had allocated for future potential road 
development. One of our lines of reasoning, in petitioning the City to 
let us not open those streets as car streets,  was that the City had 
planning documents which claimed to encourage and support non-motorized 
transport, and yet had few pedestrian or bike paths, So we got to erase a 
number of potential car streets, and included in the plan a major 
public-access path. 

A middle-school with about 200 students was opened nearby, and we worried 
that we would have a flood of kids trooping through, littering, tromping 
landscaping, tearing up gravel paths with bicycles. Even those of us who 
like to see ourselves as friends of young people had some concerns, 
especially when the school handed out a map of recommended routes for 
children to take to school, and featured our path. 

In fact, maybe a dozen kids a day come through, and sometimes only a 
couple. In the winter, almost none. The DEER do way more damage than 
passing people, as far as plantings are concerned. The neighbor kids use 
the paths more than the school kids. Unfortunately they like the hill and 
come tearing down there at a speed which could cause serious injury to a 
pedestrian, especially some of our older folks, if they didn't see them 
around a bend. 

Litter hasn't been a problem. Dog poop has been. Some combination of 
cohousing dogs, who are supposed to be scooped-up after, neighbor dogs 
who run loose and do what they please (quite a few) and people who use 
our paths to walk their dogs. 

Our landscape committee is making up some signs to the effect of "You are 
welcome to use our path. Please respect private property and please scoop 
after your dog." We'll see if that makes any difference. 

Our neighbors are pretty similar to us-- there is no sense that we are an 
island of people who are culturally or materially different than our 
neighbors. That helps. It's also a town where many people don't lock 
their house or car or bicycle. Which also helps.

Another issue to consider is that of liability. If you have children's 
play equipment, or something like a trampoline, or a pond, or rock walls 
that invite climbing, you need to decide how to reduce the chances of a 
passing child getting hurt and you getting sued. Legally, something like 
a trampoline that is easily accessed by the public is called an 
"attractive nuisance".  Obviously the range of responses is broad, from 
"let's not let legal fears get in the way of common sense enjoyment" to 
"we'd better not even have anything like that around." 

Overall, I consider the public using our paths to be an asset. It avoids 
the perception that we are "gated" and also generally raises awareness of 
what we are doing here: people see our big common garden area, and our 
common house under construction. Sometimes they stop and ask questions. 

I say, "Do it !" What would be ideal (and we still haven't ever gotten to 
doing it) would be to erect a little informational bulletin board-- sort 
of like you see in a state park-- maybe with a little roof to shelter it, 
a map and information under a piece of plexiglass, and perhaps a 
help-yourself box with brochures, or at least information for contacting 
the group for more info about how to join. 

Lynn Nadeau