Cohousing-L Mailing List: New co-housing in Arcata, CA

[sga1 (sga1]

Hello fellow co-housers,

I?m a current resident of Marsh Commons in Arcata, California. For those
of you who haven?t heard of Arcata, it?s a college town about six hours
north of San Francisco, in redwood country on the Humboldt Bay. Utne
Reader considers it one of the most enlightened towns in the U.S., Outdoor
Magazine says we?re one of the U.S.?s ?ten dream towns? and we have had a
Green Party majority in the City Council most years.

Recently Joyce Plath (co-founder and designer of Marsh Commons) and I were
hired by a local developer to organize another green-built co-housing
group of 24 households--14 ?affordable? and 10 ?market?. The building site
is 2 acres and located about 4 blocks from the downtown core of Arcata on
an old lumber mill site. Adjacent is a 26 acre cow pasture that the
developer is interested in turning into a restored prairie and organic
farm, and the developer would like the co-housing group to be responsible
for overseeing the farm. The co-housing group would be partial owners
along with about 100 others houses that will be built into the larger
development on the former lumber mill site, but the co-housing group would
be the active managing group.

Currently there are three groups that are interested in sharing the farm:
a native plants nursery, a small organic egg and chicken operation and a
Community Supported Agriculture farm. Those farmers would obviously be
responsible for running their own businesses, but they would be leasing
the farm from the homeowner?s association of the larger development, and
that association would be peopled by the co-housing group and would set
policy, oversee finances, make sure the prairie and trails are maintained,
etc.

So Joyce and I are interested in seeing if there are people out there who
would like to join a new co-housing group in Arcata. The houses aren?t
designed yet (we?re waiting for the group to make design decisions), but
they are slated for completion in November of 2007. The developer is a
little nervous that co-housing isn?t popular enough to sell 24 houses in
Arcata (little do they know!), so they?ve given us 4 months to get
together a list of interested people. Any takers? :)

Please respond to my personal email address (sga1 [at] humboldt.edu) or call
707 826-1450 and pass the word on to friends. Thanks much.

Warmly,
Sean Armstrong
Project Manager for the Foster Avenue Farm (the farm next to the co-housing)

31 South G Street
Arcata, CA 95521
sga1 [at] humboldt.edu
(707) 826-1450