Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: environmental initiatives

[Merlin Porter-Borden (merlpb]

> would like to hear from individuals or groups who had environmental goals
while they were forming >their community.  Did you manage to maintain your
ideal community.
> Jason Whitfield
> MA Candidate
> University of Waterloo

We were the first cohousing community in this area, and we, initially, had
visions of extensive environmental features in our development.  We quickly
moved to minimise appearances of being radically different from the
"standard" development by eliminating the composting toilets, grey water,
etc.  Even so, it has taken a very long time to get though the beaucratic
maze; I don't want to guess how much longer it would have taken had we kept
to our original green goals.  We probably would have failed altogether.  We
have broken cohousing ground with officialdom here, and the next communities
can benefit from our modest beginning (which includes ground source HVAC).

Merlin Porter-Borden
Project Manager
Liberty Village, Maryland