Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Sharon's Comments About How to Start Reforming Our Condos

[Marta Vanegas, Concordia Organizer (admin]

Sharon,

Thanks for the helpful suggestions.  Actually, our condo complex currently have 
pretty strict rules about what is "allowed" to be done in terms of gardening 
and landscaping in the common areas.  But every rule may change.  Let me 
illustrate this: In order to enhance the feng shui of my townhouse I decided to 
put out two potted plants to the two sides of my brick-red door.  They were 
brick red flowering plants in brick-red pots.  Wow, it looked stunning, and it 
did a nice balancing act to the otherwise lopsided landscaping around my entry 
door.  Of course, one week after I installed the pots, we got our monthly 
newsletter from the management, stating that the rule is to put out not more 
than one pot.  Well, I didn't remove one of my pots, considering it civil 
resistance, and considering that two pots have way better balancing effect on 
my entryway than one pot.  The next month or so, we got the next newsletter 
stating that the policy is to put out not more than 2 pots!  Oh, th
 e winds
 of change.

Another story: as we were discussing with my husband the question of how to 
enhance our current condo community, we jhappened to arrive to our parking 
garage - a shared garage of four.  Well, our neighbor was just getting out of 
his car when he overheard me saying that we, as a community, should perhaps buy 
one of the available three-bedroom condos  for ourselves and use it as a common 
house.  And boy, did he like the idea.  He said we really needed a clubhouse 
and more common facilities and perhaps a playground...  and I think that's 
promising.

As somebody said before, condos just make so much ecological sense, and a slow, 
but steady conversion in existing condo communities is perhaps an idea worth 
exploring.

Yours in community, whether existing or in the making,



Marta R. Vanegas
Community Organizer
Concordia Cohousing
admin [at] concordiacohousing.org
www.concordiacohousing.org

"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi

Cohousing - Building an Old Fashioned Neighborhood in a New Way