Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Defining "the cohousing principle"

[Berrins (Berrins]

The responses to Anthony's comments RE: owner involvement in the development 
process have been great (esp., as usual, Rob's), and should be brought 
together and sent out to all new groups.  Any volunteers?

Two thoughts:

1) Being your own developer gives you the experience of running a large 
project together (although I highly recommend getting a development 
coordinator to help guide you through the process).   Once you are done, you 
will be better able to coordinate and perform the day-to-day operations of a 
condo association.  There is no teacher and community builder like experience.

2) While many cohousing groups are in existence or in development, we are 
still but a tiny, tiny percentage of new housing or retrofit housing 
neighborhoods being built.   "Traditional" suburban sprawl or condo 
developments are still the norm.  Very few architects, landscape architects, 
contractors and town planning boards have experience with cohousing.  They 
may have heard of it, but have very little hands on experience. 

In most cases, the folks developing the community will have the most 
knowledge about cohousing, even if it's mostly theoretical.  Don't expect 
your contractor or town planning boards members to educate themselves about 
cohousing.  They are expecting the future community members to do that.

Therefore, in order for the future physical structure to best enhance and 
foster cohousing community ideals and any specific needs of the future 
community, the folks who want to live there will want to be deeply involved 
in the physical design process.  Here's an example:

We are in the middle of move-ins at Pathways, which means we are living in a 
construction site.  Right now the grounds alternate between mud and dust.  We 
are hoping to get some plant life soon (grass, ground cover and ornamental 
plantings).  However, the contractor and virtually all the subs have no 
experience with cohousing (fortunately, our architects and development 
coordinator all live in nearby Pioneer Cohousing, but they aren't involved 
with the landscaping).  As of right now, as I understand it, the contractor 
is simply going to let the landscapers come in and "do their thing," which in 
all likelihood will be typical condo-style individual home plantings.  Yuck 
AND muck.

We are attempting to entice a land arch grad student from UMass to take us on 
as a project.  To do this we will have to pry some budget money away from the 
project budget and then gain some control over the landscape design process.  
I don't know if any cohousing group has done this before (if you have, let me 
know how you did it!).  If we are successful and get an integrated, 
well-thought out landscape design, the quality of cohousing community life 
will be that much better.  It definitely won't happen if we aren't involved 
in the design process.


Roger Berman
Pathways Cohousing
Northampton, MA
(we closed yesterday and move-in April 1st; Oy!)