Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing in the midwest, Indiana, Michigan

[Maggi Rohde (maggi]

On Wed, 5 Feb 2003, Megan Moss wrote:
> We are interested in moving back to the midwest and wondered about
> cohousing, specifically in northern Indiana, but southern Michigan
> would be OK too.

Hey, Megan, southern Michigan is the place to be!  =)

Touchstone Cohousing is the third cohousing community in Michigan
(all three of which are within 20 acres of one another in Ann
Arbor).  Our site is a lovely six-acre prairie surrounded by fields,
trees and a nature preserve, but is less than 10 driving minutes
from downtown Ann Arbor, a midwest mecca of food, arts, culture, the
University of Michigan and excellent public schools (of course, I
teach in the system, so I'm biased!).

Our site plan is being submitted for approval as we speak.  We had
our unit programming weekend in January.  It looks like (with a fair
amount of certainty) the units will range in price from just under
$100K for a 460sqft 1 bedroom w/basement or attic to $350Kish for
over 1000sqft 3 bedroom w/basement and attic.  We have two 1-bedroom
floor plans (the other is 675sqft), a 2-bedroom flat, 2-bedroom
townhouse and two 3-bedroom floor plans.  Some could be walkouts.

Depending on how fast we grow, we could break ground as early as
fall of 2003, but I don't anticipate that quick a schedule.

We currently have a dozen member households out of 46 units, many of
which are singles.  We also have one- and two-parent families with
children, and older singles with grown children.  Most of our
remaining units are larger ones, so we're hoping to attract more
families with kids.

As I mentioned, we are in a fairly unique situation in that we are
directly adjacent to two other cohousing communities: the
member-developed Sunward, in place for five years, and CDC-developed
Great Oak, which is building now and will be moving in this summer.
This means we will essentially have an extended community of 120
households.  Our north side butts up against the Great Oak site, so
we plan to share amenities such as a workshop and a garden, not to
mention fields, streams and lots of love.

Feel free to check out our web page (not much there now, but we're
redesigning right now): http://www.ic.org/touchstone/

-Maggi Rohde
 Touchstone Cohousing
 Teacher/Librarian, Ann Arbor Public Schools, MI
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