Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Trash Generation/Dumpsters in Cohousing

[pattymara (pattymara]

On Sun, 25 Aug 2002 10:50:01 -0400 Sharon Villines
<sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> writes:
> The trucks are a hazard. I now understand why large supermarkets, 
> shopping
> centers, etc. have a separate entrance and exit for them.
> 
> Sharon.

Ditto.  At Tierra Nueva, the garbage truck took out the cable company
wire that was strung from the street to a too low pole.  More
catastrophically, a big moving van took out a fire hydrant on site and
created a great gusher that flooded the streets, then took off.    (silly
move, we knew how to track him.)

Trucks are a hazard.  The UPS and FedEx trucks have gotten better at
driving up to our hilltop parking lot, then executing a turnaround in a
tight space, but at first it was difficult to watch.  

When we designed our site plan, 7 years ago, the fire department had a
lot to say about fire access, hose wrap requirements, etc, but we did not
anticipate the myriad of other trucks which come on site daily, or
weekly.  Heads up to new groups in design stages:  We could have solved
several of our problems related to traffic flow by creating a perimeter
road with an ingress *and* egress.  We choose instead to build one road
which deadends about 2/3 of the way around the site. The reason:  keeping
more of our avocado orchard intact, and preserving more pedestrian,
non-vehicle space.  

As a person who lives along the edge of the site where the perimeter road
could have been, I'm glad that we don't have delivery trucks, garbage
trucks and other traffic passing by....But, it has its price:  an awkward
turnaround at the upper parking lot, and perhaps, in some emergency, less
evacuation flexibility.  My husband and I held firm to our request for 2
doors in our home design (some units have only one door) based on the
belief that two doors are safer in an emergency.  Interestingly, we
didn't apply that same belief to the roads of our site plan, putting
higher priority on tree preservation and pedestrian safety.    

Patty Mara Gourley
Tierra Nueva, central CA coast

 


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