Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Introduction: A new cohousing community in Tucson, Arizona

[Michael D (ohanamd]

> Any and all marketing ideas are more than welcome...

Since you've asked, I'll give my suggestions.

First, I think, you need to decide whether you're building a housing project
or developing a community.  Here's how I distinguish between the two:

A housing project emphasizes the characteristics of the houses, land,
landscaping, and amenities.  The relationships among the people are
secondary.

A community emphasizes the relationships among the people.  The housing is
secondary.

Thus, a cohousing community is one in which the relationships of the members
are of highest import, and the housing is built according to the principles
of cohousing to support those relationships.

If you're building a cohousing project, advertise the housing and mention
the relationships among the people as an afterthought.  What you primarily
want is people who like the housing and aren't as interested in the other
people.

 If you're building a cohousing community, emphasize the relationships among
the people and mention the housing as a secondary factor.  What you
primarily want is people who want to live in community, who want to develop
close relationships with their neighbors.

As I've said in a previous post, I think planning the housing before you
have members of the community together and they've worked out a set of
agreements, a method for dealing with conflict, and have become like
extended family is putting the cart before the horse.  As has been
demonstrated on this list, it's much more difficult to build community among
people who all like the idea of cohousing than it is to build community
among people who all are committed to the process of building community.

I compare it to getting married, because I believe a community is like a
family.  If someone wants a marriage partner, they (usually) don't advertise
what a wonderful house they have and what the landscape around it is like.
They advertise what kind of person they are and how they want to relate to
their partner.  Then, once they've built a relationship, they find housing
that works for them.

Later when someone marries into an established family, the emphasis still
isn't on the housing.  It's on the relationships.  Similarly, when a house
becomes available in a cohousing community, the emphasis would be on finding
someone who fits into the community, not someone to occupy a house.

My notion is that only the housing that's required for already committed
members of the community would be built.  Then when other people become
community members, they can build their own houses in keeping with the
master plan.

Being more specific, if your vision is 40 households and you have 5
committed households, you develop a master plan for 40 houses, but only
build 5.  If you don't want to build until you have, for example, 10
households, then you wait to build until you have 10 households in the
community - that is, feeling like extended family, in alignment with all the
agreements, practicing good communication skills, and demonstrating
willingness and ability to apply conflict resolution methods that you've
agreed upon.

So, given all of this, I suggest that your advertising thrust, if you want a
community instead of a housing project, focus largely on the relationships,
communication, sharing, resolving conflict in a healthy way, and becoming
like a chosen extended family with each other.  Then educate them about how
cohousing facilitates community, if they don't already know that.

If you'd like to see the introductory information about Heart Song Community
(who are doing it as I've described) that will sooner or later become our
brochure, let me know, and I'll send it to you.

Namaste,
Michael
Heart Song Community
Santa Fe, NM
ohanamd [at] earthlink.net


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