Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re:Environmental Initiatives

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

The main ways in which cohousing communities are environmentally sensitive
are that we a) cluster our housing to maintain as much open space as is
feasible, and we (in many cases drastically) reduce our reliance on our
cars because we can get  more of our social/community i needs met without
leaving home.

And the word on all those lovelies that Jason inquired about in his
post,--composting toilets, solar power, or alternative building
materials---is that a community can have all those things and more IF they
can afford them.   That's the bottom line I fear, all the idealism in the
world notwithstanding. 

As a f'rinstance, in Old Oakland Cohousing, when we decided to go ahead
with centralized hydronic (circulating hot water) heating in our project,
we had to agree at that very moment to add over $100,000 to our
construction cost.

The moral of the story is (unfortunately)--at least in the next few
years--that most of us will have to be satisfied that we are doing part by
clustering our housing, limiting our consumerism somewhat by sharing
certain things, and reducing  our auto use.  Of course most of us all
pretty conscientious recyclers but  recognize that personal household
recycling is just a drop in the bucket.

Joani Blank
California