Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: How hard is partnering with housing authorities? -- Shelly DeMeo

[Laura Fitch, A.I.A. (lfitch]

Shelly,

I do not think 3.5 acres is all that tight for cohousing.  Urban models 
are routinely built with 30+ units on less than 1 acre.  Are you willing 
to stack the units into apratment type configurations, or is it 
important that they be more like townhouses or even duplexes?  How many 
cohousing units are we talking about?  3.5 acres might be tight if you 
are talking about 30 units of single family houses!

Is the senior housing for the remainder of the larger site site, or to 
be integrated into your project?

I know we have asked you in the past to consider using our design 
services, but see you are beginning to work with a local architect.  Are 
you aware that we routinely provide "cohousing consultant" services to 
groups in collaboration with a local architect?  Most of our work in 
such a sceneerio is upfront doing "programming" and schematic site and 
common house design.  The local architect typically helps with permiting 
and such, and then follows through with design development, construction 
documents, and construction oversight.

We recently completed all the progamming and preliminary design for 
Jamaica Plain (Boston) Cohousing, before they hired a Boston firm. 
Since  then we have worked with this firm through the schematic design 
phase.  We really have enjoyed the process.  I would encourage you to 
talk to Jamaica Plain Cohousing members and/or this Boston firm 
(Domenick, Hicks & Krockmalnic) to see if they feel they got good value 
from this arrangement.  I think they did!

Best,
Laura Fitch

--
Laura Fitch, A.I.A.
Principal Architect

KRAUS-FITCH ARCHITECTS, INC.
110 Pulpit Hill Rd.
Amherst, MA  01002
413-549-5799
413-549-7918 (fax)

lfitch [at] krausfitch.com



Fred H Olson wrote:

> Shelly DeMeo, Greater Hartford Cohousing <shelldemeo [at] attbi.com>
> is the author of the message below. 
> It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
> because the message included HTML ;      PLEASE do not post HTML, see
>   http://csf.colorado.edu/cohousing/2001/msg01672.html
> --------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------
>
> Hi--
>
> Greater Hartford Cohousing is considering a site in our top pick town,
> West Hartford.  The site is 8 acres in a semi-urban location.
>
> The site would only work for us (due to price) if we had part of the site.  
> The way the site would work is that a piece of it would be cohousing,
> around 3.5 acres (tight!), the town would have a soccer field, there would
> be a garden, and the Hartford Housing Authority wants to do 20 units of 55
> plus senior housing.
>
> The guy who is building momentum for this project is the director of a
> west hartford housing initiative that wants to do a cohousing community
> with us but have about eight of them below market rate.
>
> He has met with town officials, head of hartford housing authority, a
> prominent architect in our town (Tai Soo Kim) who is enthusiastic about
> the concept and is drawing up some preliminary site plans.  While he knows
> what cohousing is, he has no cohousing experience.  His last job was a
> korean embassy.
>
> We are having a meeting with everyone, including our project manager Peter
> Jessop.
>
> Sorry long-winded but,if you have any advice about working with other
> groups including a housing authority (good or bad) and/or if you have a
> site plan of cohousing on tight space within a larger design concept that
> we could take a look at, let me know.
>
> This is complicated and we could use any help anyone wants to give us.
>
> Thanks,
> Shelly DeMeo
> Greater Hartford Cohousing
>
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