Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Working with developer or using dev. consultants/possible site

[Margaret Weatherly (martiew]

A couple of quick responses: 
I am a member of Liberty Village in Maryland, where we are developing
our community ourselves, and have been closely involved with Takoma
Village, where they worked with a developer.

Regardless of how you develop it, you will have to have someone "in the
middle" representing the interests of the cohousing group to the
developer. This would never be your lawyer. Takoma Village had a
consultant working between the group and the developer. In our case, our
architect is a partner and is the person between us and the builder. 

This person will always be pushed from both sides, to represent the
cohousing group to the developer and to make the project work for the
developer. It seems that profit margin is always a problem when building
cohousing, because what the group wants always costs more money. It
seems to me that that tension will always be there. 

So you have to have someone representing the group to the
developer/builder and vice versa. You may need to pay someone to do
this, and it needs to be someone who knows cohousing and the development
process. Also, if you are developing yourself, you have to have someone
who knows the development regulations, the government, zoning issues,
etc. This has taken a long time for us and has its good and bad sides. 

Secondly, you will be setting up the development process in whichever
way you choose, but you must also pay attention to creating relationship
in your group and working on group cohesiveness, facilitation, meeting
norms and consensus. This is the heart of cohousing. You may need to
hire people who can train you in these areas. This is just as important
as getting the houses built, because it is what we are building it for.
Development is a challenging, rocky road and your group needs to grow
together during the process. This has been the advantage for us in our
long development process.

Thirdly, I would look very carefully at any professional relationship
where someone is giving you services for free, because it is hard not to
have strings attached that get in the way of a clear business
relationship. Remember, you are a company building a community and you
should always look at your actions and see if they are consistent with
sound business practices. 

Glad to talk to you privately if you have any other questions.

I am moving into my house in two months, and it has all been well worth
it! Martie Weatherly, Liberty Village
martiew [at] earthlink.net



> Shelly Demeo wrote:
> 
> hello--
> 
> There is a non-profit developer that has been interested in our group
> for a while and took me for a drive the other day and showed me a
> piece of property he has.  The group is excited about the location and
> the site would be ideal.
> 
> He develops mostly senior housing in the non-profit and for profit
> sector.  He also works for Community Renewal Team, an anti-poverty
> agency in Hartford part-time in developing housing for them.  He used
> to work for a huge development firm here in CT called Konover.  Within
> the last year, he started his own non-profit development corp.
> 
> We have actually known this developer for a while (whose name is
> Shelly too).  Early on, we hired a cohousing development consultant
> for a four month/10,000K contract to help us focus on cohousing
> development, do pro forma, narrow towns, evalute sites, etc.  He
> helped us a lot and is a great person.  Our group likes him a lot.  He
> is also a builder and the group was definitely thinking of him
> building the project.
> 
> During the four month contract period, our cohousing consultant met
> with Shelly (the developer) to see if Konover would develop our
> project.  Nobody from the group was at that meeting, but the gyst of
> it was that the profit margin was too low.  This meeting happened
> about a year ago.  Our group was disappointed.
> 
> Well, basically the contract ended six months ago and our cohousing
> consultant is still investigating land pieces that the group brings to
> him.  He says that he likes this work and he wants to continue doing
> it for free. We haven't been too successful in finding anything.  MLS
> stuff is not great and overpriced.  I personally am feeling a sense of
> growing obligation because of the work he has been doing.
> 
> Now we are in a situation where we have a piece of land that the group
> is excited about, a developer who has seen our pro forma that wants to
> develop our cohousing community on this site...BUT he is saying the
> profit margin is too low to have the cohousing consultant AND him
> involved.  He also wants to build it modular so having our consultant
> build the project might not work.
> 
> Two quick questions..
> 
> 1.  Has anyone been in this situation where they had to not continue
> with a development consultant and self develop and instead went with a
> developer?  Is there a WIN/WIN scenario out there for having a
> cohousing professional and developer?
> 
> 2.  If we choose to work with this developer, who would negotiate for
> us from a "cohousing" perspective?  Our lawyer?
> 
> It seems scary doing this without our consultant there holding our
> hands...but to have a local developer wanting to do our project and
> showing us a good site seems like something we should explore
> further.
> 
> Thanks again for input.
> 
> Shelly DeMeo
> Greater Hartford Cohousing
> 
> 
>
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