Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: The "Burden on Local Schools" Argument againstDevelopment

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

The best answers to these questions have already been answered by other
developers. Find out who has built in your area, find their general
contractor boss type and either invite him/her out on a nice dinner or hire
them directly. If nobody has built anything in your area in a decade, then
there is reason why and you are unlikely to succeed where other developers
have failed. But I doubt that is the case. Cohousing answers from CA are
largely useless in your district, you need LOCAL answers to these questions.
Developers from your area deal with these all the time. Believe it or not,
sometimes these people BRIBE officials to get projects built. (I once sat
with a developer who told me that he reserved 5% for "gifts" for officials.)
The developers in your area know the ropes. Make a big list of questions,
then hire or smooze them for answers. You'll save yourself lots of time. If
Big Kimmy's development company has built 5 multi-family condos in your
district, and they bought the mayor a new car to do it, then you will have
to do this also. More likely, there are certain people you need to know and
curry favor with and this is what Big Kimmy can tell you. In fact, Big Kimmy
might even be able to use their influence to get your project through the
local hoops, for a price. Citing statistics from another state will not get
you very far.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com


-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Elizabeth Stevenson
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 10:18 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_The "Burden on Local Schools" Argument
againstDevelopment



What do you have, 500 kids?? I don't understand this argument. The children
will go to local schools, yes, but many will not. Cohousers in general tend
to have high numbers of children in alternative schools or home school.
Perhaps you could give them some statistics from your group. Also, your
property taxes will be added to the city coffers, and isn't school part of
what we are supposed to get in return for taxes?

You can list all the developments that have been infill projects and how
they have all increased property values and therefore taxes. Our development
in particular spurred a renaissance in this neighborhood, which, rather than
burdening the schools, has helped finance them through our taxes. All of our
kids go to other schools than the neighborhood school, since in Sacto you
can choose any school in the district to go to. However, we have had a few
members send their kids to the local school in the past. Nothing that had
any impact whatsoever.

When we moved in 10 years ago, people wouldn't even use the beautiful local
park, because it was full of alcoholics drinking and harassing people.
Several of our members were instrumental in getting a new neighborhood
center built there. The park is now full of people, and there is a new
accessible playground going in soon. When the city finds out that there is a
neighborhood political infrastructure to support programs, you get them.
Cohousers are the proverbial squeaky wheel.

This is not to say that we run the neighborhood, but that our members have
been an active part of the neighborhood association and have given it new
blood. We were lucky to find a neighborhood where there was already an
association and people who were motivated to participate. Our members just
added critical mass. We have lots of friends in the neighborhood now, and
are completely integrated into it. This takes time, but *everyone* has
benefited.

Since then, many houses that were falling down have been rehabbed, and many
more built as infill. This is a hot neighborhood to buy into. A new smallish
4 bedroom house across the street just sold for $250,000. When we moved in,
the city had to loan us money to get mortgages, because our houses were
worth less than it cost to build them. A 5 bedroom cost 150k, and was worth
only about 140k.

Hope this helps.

--
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, California
tamgoddess [at] attbi.com
> From: Kai von Fintel <lists [at] fintel.mailworks.org>
> Reply-To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 12:17:21 -0400
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Subject: [C-L]_The "Burden on Local Schools" Argument against Development
>
>
> Does the cohousing community as an exponent of smart housing have any
> collective expertise in countering various arguments that are routinely
> brought up against new developments? We at Mosaic Commons are currently
> hard at work managing the poltical situation in a town where we have
> found a parcel that would work beautifully (with some challenges) for
> our group. And again and again, we hear that our children will
> overburden the local schools, that our development is too dense, etc.
> It is the "schools" argument in particular that we would appreciate
> some help with.
>
> What responses have worked for you? What language did you use towards
> the kind of "Cohousing seems great, but not in my neighborhood, not in
> my town" attitude?
>
> Kai von Fintel, Mosaic Commons, West of Boston, MA
> <http://www.mosaic-commons.org>
> Where we just had a fantastic preliminary site design workshop with
> KrausFitch Architects (our third on yet another property).
>
> _______________________________________________
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