Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Group Involvement in the Development Process

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> I find that almost every screw-up that happened in the process
> of building our project was due to incompetence and mistakes
> by professionals - not as a result of lack of knowledge or lack
> of timely response by our group.

I agree. I wasn't suggesting that our group made mistakes -- it was just
very very time consuming for us to be involved in everything. Yes we do have
a better product but I wonder sometimes, how much better.

> I find that working hard with other people on a project can be
> a *bonding* experience, not necessarily a divisive one.

I also think this is true and an essential part of cohousing. I don't live
here to have fun -- I can have fun anywhere -- I live here to confront life
with a group of people who confront back and help each other along the way.

I was just suggesting that there is enough to do without being involved in
the daily construction inspections and decisions. We had members on the
property at 5:30 in the morning before they went to work. We also hired
professional construction inspectors-- more than one different kind. We
still have construction problems and were so deep in the process that some
important decisions on which we could have worked toward consensus were left
to the developer in the end anyway.

Burn out is real, and it makes the first years very hard.

Sharon.

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