Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: BIG Co-housing. Who Loves It? Who Hates It?

[Jock Coats (jock.coats]

There are some big schemes mentioned in the Co-Housing Book aren't  
there - into the hundreds of households in some cases.

They must have different dynamics to your smaller very personal  
communities.  But I seem to remember seeing at least one mentioned in  
there, the biggest I think, that was laid out as four "blocks" each  
of which was itself really a co-ho community.

I also seem to remember that these were predominantly affordable  
developments and so I rather suspect that participants were chosen  
rather than self-selecting.  But I guess the message was that they  
can work, after a fashion.

As regards Sweden, the culture is very much already one of mutual  
housing.  Mutually owned housing accounts for 40% of urban housing  
and 25% of all housing overall.  Converting the management structure  
of existing blocks that are developed as "SEK" (Mutual) apartments to  
co-housing would be relatively easy I'd say.  It's an example that  
some of us in the UK would like to replicate.  These SEK homes  
generally have all economic "classes" in them and are therefore well  
balanced and functional communities already.  It's quite common  
though for anyone with a bit of spare cash to have a weekend home  
somewhere outside the city that is "their own" and SEK/mutual  
apartments in the city, I gather.

Jock

On 27 Mar 2006, at 09:17, dwoodard [at] becon.org wrote:

> Lion, I've read that some apartment buildings in Sweden have been
> converted to cohousing. I have no idea how they did it or how  
> successful
> the projects were, but I suspect that you would be well advised to  
> find
> out.
>
> Doug Woodard
> St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
>
>
> On Sun, 26 Mar 2006, Lion Kuntz wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Diane, for your comments. I purposely did not want to
> > put a picture on any project and spoke of examples of Opera
> > Plaza and FrogSong instead.
> >
> > I have indeed spent considerable thought on the issues you
> > brought up. I have a plan in mind which I would like to defer
> > describing until I feel the "initial feelings" about projects
> > outside the scale of present co-housing sizes have come in.
> >
> > The web link you cited was for a very specific audience in 2003
> > holding an internet conference to continue the momentum of the
> > 5th ECOCITY conference in 2002 in Szechen, China. There are
> > various entry doors to the website which may be more relevent to
> > people on this list, most of whom are not (it seems to me) in
> > big cities, and have other concerns.
> >
> > You asked a lot of astute detailed questions. I would ask you to
> > bear with me in patience. I would rather not paint pictures in
> > peoples minds who might still be thinking of answering the
> > "bigness" question from their own perspective first. Unless I am
> > wrong the currents will move on to many other subjects of the
> > hour, and in a week or so I could address your questions at any
> > level of detail you prefer.
> >
> > Thanks for taking the question seriously enough to google me and
> > find a weblink. The questions you showed concern about are
> > fairly universal and apply to all mixed-use multi-family
> > projects. I hope you will find my answers satisfactory. However,
> > locating potential problems I have not yet anticipated is even
> > more valuable to me. That's what I hope to learn from peoples
> > reactions to the thoughts of something bigger than they are used
> > to.
> >
> > I could have used the Fox Plaza example instead of the Opera
> > Plaza building. That one is 11 stories of offices, topped by
> > another 11 stories of luxury condos, all of it on groundfloor
> > commercial space (previously department store, bank, post
> > office, office supply store). It's not anything I would like to
> > be a part of, or participate in, but the principle of largeness
> > and combined residential-public spaces is adequately proved.
> > Although it is a "city block", it is a smallish triangular block
> > that forced the developer to go high to maximize his interests.
> > It is about as opposite as I can think of to my concept.
> >
> > I spent the summer of 1980 in Boston, but unfortunately can't
> > recall any prominent examples in your area to point to. My mind
> > was occupied on different thoughts in those days. If you can
> > think of any development with a web presence, which combines
> > about 100 families with  commercial ground floor on one city
> > block, I would appreciate the link.
> >
> > Sincerely, Lion Kuntz
> > Sonoma County, California, USA
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--
Jock Coats - Chair, Oxfordshire Community Land Trusts
c/o Warden's Flat 1e, J Block Morrell Hall, OXFORD, OX3 0FF
w: +44 (0)1865 483353 h: +44 (0)1865 485019
m: +44 (0)7769 695767 e: jock.coats [at] oclt.org.uk
www: http://www.oclt.org.uk/ - http://jockcoats.blogspot.com/