Cohousing-L Mailing List: Article about New View (Acton MA) in Boston Globe

[Jim Snyder-Grant (jimsg]

This link may not work for long, so I've copied the text of the article as
well.

-Jim

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/160/metro/Community_spirit+.shtml

Jim Snyder-Grant
jimsg [at] newview.org
18 Half Moon Hill
Acton MA 01720
New View Cohousing
http://www.newview.org


Community spirit
In Mass., cohousing concept finds a place to grow

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff, 6/9/2002

ACTON - In some neighborhoods, people wave to the family across the
street. In others, they cat-sit for one another and throw a block
party every summer.

On Half Moon Hill in Acton, residents eat neighborhood dinners up to
four nights a week. As many as 20 e-mails fly back and forth in a
single day, arranging the summer mowing schedule or community yoga
classes, discussing whether to chip in for a knife sharpening service
or arguing over conflict in the Middle East.

Children tend to practice piano together or play on the same soccer
team. They stage puppet shows after dinner and are often found
sprinting and squealing through bouts of the neighborhood's homegrown
''onion game,'' no longer played with an actual onion for safety
reasons.

This is New View, a six-year-old community of 24 households at the
vanguard of the American movement for ''cohousing.'' In cohousing,
residents own their own houses or condos but share common space,
divide up chores, and regularly cook group meals, all in pursuit of
that shaky pillar of the American dream: the vibrant, close-knit
neighborhood.

Although cohousing is still working toward name recognition, it is a
hot concept in the United States, especially in Massachusetts. Seven
cohousing communities are already well established in the Bay State,
two in Amherst and others on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard,
Cambridge, Northampton, and Acton.

More are on the way. Families moved from New York and Maryland to join
the recently opened Cornerstone Cohousing, the second settlement in
Cambridge. Jamaica Plain Cohousing owns land. Another group is
searching for property in Stow, Maynard, and Acton. And a new condo
complex in Medford is being called a ''cohousing cousin'' because it
shares many features of cohousing, except that the group will be
assembled by the developer, not by would-be residents.

Individuals who want a peek into what their commingled lives might be
like, can look to New View. Members of the Acton neighborhood have
nursed one another through many births and illnesses, through a
serious house fire, and a recent marital separation. They constantly
watch one another's children, borrow cars in a pinch, and swap soccer
cleats and gardening tools.

They also confront the inevitable frictions. Some are concerned that
not everyone pulls his or her weight with chores. At least a couple of
adolescents consider their neighbors nosy, and one older resident
finds the community too child-focused. Yet only one family has moved
away, deciding it wasn't a good fit. A second family is leaving for
other reasons.

The cohousing movement originated in Denmark in the 1970s, but the
idea didn't make it to the United States until two architects wrote a
book about it in 1988. As its popularity snowballs, proponents see
confirmation that in these harried and individualistic times, many
Americans long for more workable, fulfilling and, in some ways,
old-fashioned lives.

''There continues to be a real yearning for community in this country,
especially among middle-class people who are fortunate enough to have
the house, the cars, the lawn, the good jobs, everything they thought
they wanted,'' said Stella Tarnay, the Cambridge-based editor of the
Cohousing Journal. ''Then they find they are increasingly hassled,
stressed, and isolated from their fellow human beings.''

Isolated is exactly how New View resident Yvonne Bauer, 41, felt at
her last home in Reading.

''Everyone is king of their own anthill,'' said Bauer, a divorced
mother of two. ''It makes so much sense to share resources. Why should
everyone have their own lawn mower? And part of it is liking people
and wanting to be around them, but not all the time.''

It was Bauer who first read an article about cohousing in 1989. Loving
the idea, she slowly gathered a group of friends and strangers who
wanted to make it a reality. They include high-tech workers, nurses, a
doctor, a contractor, a recording studio owner, and a deli worker, as
well as retired people and a few full-time moms. They have no leader,
no common ideology.

New View was incorporated in 1991, and after years of work involving
lawyers, developers, and sweat equity, they bought a 19.5 acre site in
Acton. Between 1995 and 1996, they moved into their new houses, which
ranged in price from $190,000 to $420,000 depending on size and
customization.

Many cohousing enthusiasts worry though that they are not more diverse
in race, economics, and lifestyle. New View is basically all-white,
although it does include one adopted, Hispanic child. It also has a
lesbian couple. The group subsidizes one ''affordable'' unit.

The houses look typically New England, except that some are duplexes
and most are clustered closer together than the usual suburban
subdivisions, in order to leave more open space. Cohousing design
emphasizes neighbor-friendly features like front porches, kitchens at
the front of the house, and pathways connecting the homes. Cars are
kept on the periphery.

At the center of the community is the 2,000-square-foot common house,
with a restaurant-style kitchen and a spacious, high-ceiling dining
room. This is the setting for the common meals. Once or twice a week,
two volunteers cook dinner, which tends to draw at least half the
community. In addition, smaller potluck dinners are held on Sundays
and Fridays.

A host of committees run New View, which is legally a condo
association, with condo fees averaging $320 a month for such things as
snow plowing, exterior maintenance, and high-speed Internet
connection.

New View has no required activities, but many neighbors are intensely
involved in one another's lives, in ways they say inoculate them from
the stresses of working, parenthood, and even old age.

Carpooling is de rigueur, and older people often get rides to the
doctor. There's no need for playdates and little use for paid baby
sitters.

Jane Saks is a management consultant with a long commute to Boston,
and also the single mother of 9-year-old Brianna. When she goes out of
town on business, Brianna stays at a neighbor's house. If Saks is
stuck in traffic on Route 2, she makes a call for someone to pick up
Brianna.

''It's like having a wife,'' said Saks. ''It really makes my life
stress-free. I pull up in the driveway and my pulse slows down.''

Not everything is idyllic, of course. Some want only vegetarian meals;
others complain there isn't enough meat. The smallest issues, like
where to locate a tool shed or whether someone can plant a peach tree,
have turned into protracted arguments. Cohousing communities operate
on consensus, which means that even one person can block a decision.

Young children adore New View, teenagers less so. Bauer's daughter,
Maya Cookson, 12, just wants more space. ''People stop in on a regular
basis. It's annoying when they ask a lot of questions and act like
they want to be my friend,'' she said.

It was partly the fact that their children were older that made Wendy
and Larry Israelite decide to move to another neighborhood in Acton in
1998. ''It was an interesting experience but it just wasn't right for
us,'' said Wendy.

Ann Killough, 74, feels the same way, wishing there were more
adult-oriented activities. But, she said, when she got sick recently
she had no shortage of volunteers to do her laundry, her shopping, and
her library run.

Indeed, New View prides itself on its response to crisis. A few days
after the start of school last September, a fire tore through the
basement of the Lewin-Berlin household. Two New View families housed
Marcia and Stephen Lewin-Berlin and their three children for eight
weeks combined. Just about everybody pitched in to do scores of
laundry loads to banish the smell of smoke. Some wiped down every book
in the house. Some washed Marcia's jewelry, earring by earring. They
took turns cooking the Lewin-Berlins' dinner every night.

So far, New View has also deftly handled a touchier situation, a
recent split-up. The husband moved to an apartment nearby, but still
attends meals and does his chores. One neighbor stepped in to take the
wife's garbage to the dump every week, something her husband used to
do. Their 6-year-old daughter's friends leave reassuring notes and
gifts on the doorstep. The parents, too, feel they aren't isolated.

''It's been a thousand times easier,'' for both parents and child,
said the mother, who asked that their names not be used. ''My life is
really full.''

Most who live in cohousing caution, it's not for everyone. It's
time-consuming. It requires giving up a significant amount of privacy.
The journey from idea to completed community is long and trying.

''I have difficulty imagining that large numbers of people will want
to give up that much of their privacy, to have it be a really major
development in American society,'' said Harvard professor Robert D.
Putnam, author of ''Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of
American Community.''

Still, there are already 65 completed cohousing communities in the
United States, according to Tarnay, many of them on the West Coast, in
Colorado, North Carolina, or Massachusetts. Fifteen more are under
construction and 100 are at earlier stages, she said.

Tarnay says Massachusetts is one of the biggest growth areas for
cohousing. With its strong town meeting tradition and highly educated
population, she said, ''There's an intuitive understanding of the
power of neighborhoods.''


This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 6/9/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.






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