Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Lot development model cohousing

[Chris ScottHanson (chris]

In my opinion, the issue most difficult to address in the lot model is one
of geometry, and how far are you willing to walk from your car to your front
door.  And as a result, how far are you willing to walk to the common house,
and then if the distance is too great, will you ever go there to use it?

It seems that, during these 14 years of designing and building cohousing in
America, we Americans are generally willing to walk something on the order
of 250 to 300 feet in the weather.  Of course this is a BIG
generalization...  Pioneer Valley, with its hillside and it snowy winters,
has some folks willing to walk uphill in the snow for 650 feet when coming
home from work. (While others of course get to go to work right on site.) I
would suggest the the folks at Pioneer Valley are an odd exception.  Hardy
Yankees, or crazy pioneers, I don't know which.

In the lot model we are very often limited by local laws to a minimum
"street" frontage for each lot, and most often requirements that parking be
on the same lot with each home.  Boy does this cause havoc with the
geometry.  How do you get the feeling of a pre-automotive village on a
pedestrian street when everything is spread out like the new suburban Los
Angeles in the early 60's?  Perimeter roads, help the situation, but they do
not solve it.

Many of the suburban towns just west of Boston have bylaws which encourage
so called clustering, with no shared walls allowed, and minimum building
separations of 50 feet or 60.  A 30 unit project, with 15 units on each side
of one pedestrian street, assuming 30 foot wide private units, you get a
pedestrian street over 1200 feet long.  Nearly a quarter of a mile to the
common house for some folks.  Hardly clustering I would think.

It seems to me that community is about bringing people together.  Designing
for that, facilitating that, and making the geometry work so that this is
possible.  Cars get in the way of community.  Unless and until you find a
geometry that clusters well enough and allows you to segregate the cars, I
think you compromise the opportunity for building true community and
sustaining it over the generations to come.

Just my opinion, from one who believes that a large (but not the only) part
of building community is building the right environment for it.

Chris ScottHanson

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