Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Conflicting Values?

[Fleck (foam4u]

Hi,
Our group spent countless hours and brain cells on finding and maintaining
diversity in our group. In the end we have very little diversity - mainly
economic and not much then. Mainly we found that minority groups in our area
already had community and weren't searching for it in cohousing.

The affordability thing has come back to bite us in the form of large repair
bills 5 years out for sloppy construction (IE using interior drywall for
exterior purposes). If I were to do it next time I would spend as much as I
could afford up front instead of using the cheapest that would work. Our
thought was - Make it affordable and those who have the extra bucks can
upgrade later. But some things just can't be upgraded later.

And if I were to do it again, I would spend lots of time hashing this stuff
out before construction. You won't have any more time later than you do now
and after people have lived and worked on certain assumptions for a while
it's even harder to change the prevailing mindset (or culture).

Good luck,
Anne at Jackson Place Seattle



-----Original Message-----
From: Regan Conley [mailto:reganconley [at] earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 6:53 AM
To: Cohousing-L
Subject: [C-L]_ Conflicting Values?


Our little forming group (Urban D.C. Cohousing) is embroiled in a
process conflict about values.  But it's led me to wonder if we have
an underlying difference and whether we might be better served as two
groups.  As neutrally as possible:

Our group all agrees that values A (accessibility), B (affordability)
and C (diversity) are all important.

As part of our process conflict, it's come to our attention that we
have different priorities for these values.  Some believe that A and
B are really fundamental and it's pointless for people to continue
working hard on this project without an assurance that it's somewhere
they will be able to live.  Others believe with absolute moral
certitude that C must be most important to us and that we must be
prepared to sacrifice other things (including A and B) in order to
achieve C.

[I must note that the diversity we are primarily, though not
exclusively, talking about is racial.  I just don't want people
pointing out the obvious -- that we probably can't have C without A
and B -- when in fact we could have lots of racial diversity without
those two things.  Or we could have lots of A and B, but
hypothetically all white.]

Can this group live happily ever after?  How?

In principle it seems that we certainly can, if we get past the
process problems.  But in reality, everyone that lives in built co-
housing is well aware that they sacrificed something important along
the way to get there.  The group was really committed to their
values, but had to give something up in order to get nearly
everything else.

How did your group deal with this "what's most important?" problem?
Does it make sense to deal with it sooner (as a hypothetical conflict
when we might really get all three of those things) or later (when
people will have put in time and emotion and then leave the group)?

Regan Conley
Urban D.C. Cohousing
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