Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Access to the interior (by vehicle)

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

Dear Jessie, and list:

First check with your city requirements for emergency vehicle access. 
Ours was very specific that they had to be able to get a fire truck 
within x number of feet of the farthest corner of every building, and had 
to have certain sorts of turnarounds if the fire truck had to go more 
than x feet down a path. In addition, emergency vehicles needed to have 
access to homes. This was a non-negotiable in getting Planned Unit 
Development approval. Just like the UBC (building code), there was a 
(UFC) fire code.

If you are on city utilities, check also whether they have requirements 
for easements for sewer-cleanout-truck access and such. We have some such 
easements across the grass on our commons field, though they are 
"invisible."

I know at Nyland, they had pedestrian paths that were purportedly also 
usable by emergency vehicles, after undoing a sort of blocking gate at 
the end. With shoulders planted with ground cover or such that could 
theoretically be driven over. But in practice, when I visited several 
years ago, I noted that the path edges were thick with tricycles, 
shrubbery, etc etc and that seemed to me that it would be next to 
impossible to hurry a fire truck down there. 

If you do have driveable paths, you can have a simple bar-gate that needs 
to be manually disengaged to enter. This could even have a warning posted 
on it: Pedestrian path, Drive with Care  5 mph, watch for children, or 
whatever. I'm sure a wider path would be useful even without pedestrians, 
for garden carts, kids on bikes, hopscotch etc.  

Lynn at RoseWind
(Where we can drive right up to every house, and also have separate 
pedestrian paths that are well used. We have managed to drive to our 
homes without losing our sense of community. We  actually make social use 
of the additional visual clues -- we can look at driveways and see who is 
home, who has company, etc. And it is a great help for those who are 
mobility-impaired, whether by hip surgery, or sleeping children and heavy 
groceries.  )