Cohousing-L Mailing List: Swimming pools and cohousing

[Paul Conahan (pconahan]

Here at Sunward (Ann Arbor, Michigan), we are in the process of evaluating
the feasibility of installing an in-ground pool.  During our site
programming, we specifically decided NOT to have a pool, so there is no
pre-planned location we can drop the pool into.

This brought up several issues that we would love to hear other groups'
experiences with.

Namely:

-How critical is proximity (geographic and visual) as it relates to overall
usage?  Our fear is that if we place the pool too far on the periphery,
nobody will use it.

-For those communities with pools, was the pool financed and on-going
maintenance handled by a sub-set of the community?  How is this working out?
How did you handle households which did not want to participate financially
in the pool (i.e., could these households, or their successors, use the
pool?).

-Are there environmental options for the pool material and chemicals?  I
suspect Michigan is not the leading edge for such things :-)

-A general question - for those communities with a pool, would you do
anything differently?

Thanks,

Paul Conahan
www.sunward.org