Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: defining the cohousing principle

[Berrins (Berrins]

Perhaps one way (of many possible) to redefine the "cohousing principle" is 
to place less emphasis on the physical structures and layout of the 
community. 

At present, cohousing is costly because of how it's built.  Either you buy 
undeveloped land and develop it or retrofit existing buildings and the 
surrounding lots to get as close to the ideal physical set-up as possible.  
Several general physical concepts predominate; perimeter parking with no 
driveways or roads between houses, a Common House with several specific 
function rooms, preservation of open land, clustered houses that face each 
other, and a bunch more.

All of these cost cash money.  Unless you can find a funding source to GIVE 
you money (and kudos to those who've succeeded), the community members have 
to fork it up.  Once you've got the land to develop or the buildings to 
retrofit, you can either build or retrofit as cheaply as possible, let 
everyone build their own house, or go for some middle road, which is what 
most folks do.  For the purpose of this discussion, let's stick with building 
cheaply.

To build (or retrofit) cheaply, you have to either buy cheap materials, build 
simply or retrofit as little as possible, supply as much labor as you can, or 
all three.  This will still be too expensive for some folks, either in time 
or money or both.  So, for folks who don't have enough time or money to do 
any of the above, how can we make cohousing affordable?

One answer, as suggested above, is to eliminate building from scratch or 
retrofitting altogether.   Find a pre-existing neighborhood, have members 
move into the as soon as a house or apartment becomes available and work 
towards eventually having some kind of common space or house.  You don't even 
have to own anything.

Then consider all the non-physical ideals of cohousing and do what you can to 
organize and live them.  Share meals, share tools, machinery and expertise, 
watch each others kids, have games nights, meetings where you plan events, 
and so on.  Tear down the fences and set up the connecting backyards for 
community life.  Sharing stuff will save folks money, and community 
fundraisers can get a bit of extra cash.  You may not have the physical 
ideal, but you will have a community.

    Roger Berman
    Pathways
    Northampton, MA

This, by the way, is the only way I can think of to pass cohousing ideals to 
most of the rest of the world.