Cohousing-L Mailing List: self development vs developer driven vs finding developer

[Tom Hammer (thammer302]

If I could add a wrinkle to the interesting discussion:

Our group is fully convinced that working with a developer is ultimately more 
efficient in time and cost.

We are very curious and could use advice about our situation: could someone 
clarify "developer driven" cohousing vs  a group forming, finding land, and 
then "courting" a developer?

In the mid-Atlantic east coast, we've assumed we would have to use the latter 
model because there aren't cohousing developers in our immediate area.  So we 
have been spending large amounts of time and energy on land search and growing 
the group without much or any input from a developer.  There are developers 
familiar with cohousing in the D.C. area and the Boston area, but we are not 
aware of any closer to us (Philadelphia area.)

Besides clarifying the difference, could anyone give us advice on the 
advantages and disadvantages of the two models?

Doing it ourselves at the moment, we are also still struggling with the 
question: how much commitment is enough (in membership documents) to consider 
someone a core member and how much is too much.

Thanks,

Tom Hammer
for Concord Village
southeastern PA, northern DE, northeastern MD
http://www.concordvillage.org