Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordability?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Mar 15, 2007, at 4:42 PM, Brian Bartholomew wrote:

> > Plan a van from the beginning that makes two or three trips a day to
> > the city. That allows households to drop the second car and perhaps,
> > the first. But get it built in early so the people you attract are
> > attracted to that van and it won't be voted out the day after you
>                                         ^^^^^^^^^
> > move in.
>
> Was this a typo, or were you really thinking of this as a likely
> example of a consensus process failure?

Brian sent this question off-list but I thought it was of general 
interest (if you noticed the wording) so I'm replying to the list. What 
happens at the very end of the process, particularly when you are doing 
multi-household buildings built at once, is that push comes to shove. 
In all probability you have to cut this in order to get that because 
things change. There are unexpected price increases or that model isn't 
available any more or it rains for 40 days and you are way behind on 
all your contracts and paying for time in which builders can't build.

When that something happens, items that are less structural or affect 
fewer people will get cut. It may be done by consensus but it won't 
feel like consensus. It will feel like majority vote. I'm still living 
with sand colored counters that I try not to look at whenever I go in 
the kitchen because we had to cut the blue option at the very end. 
Fortunately, I went with wood floors throughout or I would be living 
with sand colored linoleum in there as well.

The kinds of things that I've also heard mentioned being cut are kids 
rooms, playground equipment, workshop equipment, dark room equipment -- 
all the things people think they can do later but then never get to. A 
commuter van will be one of these unless it goes into the plans FIRST 
and thus attracts enough households for whom this is a priority so that 
when push comes to shove, this one never even gets on the table as 
something to cut. Our group had more people who wanted "warm" than 
wanted "cool" so the cools lost out. My consolation was that I did get 
a kitchen. Those are the choices you will be making so get your 
priorities straight from the beginning.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org