Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: No Parking

[Rodney Elin (hen3ry]

Ellen Keyne Seebacher wrote:
> > Eastern Village Cohousing in Silver Spring, Maryland, does not have
> > parking.? Residents do without cars, park them on the street, or pay
> > for a permit to park them in the county garage behind EVC.?
>
> > We are walking distance to the Silver Spring Metro station and a
> > bunch of bus lines.
>
> That's great for people who can walk.  What do your disabled members do?

Ellen,

I also live in Eastern Village and I am one of the disabled members. I 
use a wheelchair most of the time.

In this case (Washington, DC) "near mass transit" means a lot more. 
Every subway station in our system has elevator access, (46 stations, 
155 elevators, 110 miles) and waiting shuttle service when an elevator 
is out of order, and the entire fleet of 2,900 buses in the system can 
accommodate any motor disability with wheelchair lifts or low floors and 
extending ramps.

With regards to proximity, I will say that there is no seating at any of 
the four nearest bus stops to Eastern Village, but bus service is 
frequent enough that a bus comes by in either direction about once every 
twenty minutes during the day (hough less frequently on Sunday.)

I do not have a copy of your original query, but I think it was asking 
about urban cohousing or cohousing that did not have included parking. 
Eastern Village was an adaptive  reuse project and that meant that our 
developer was not required to meet a variety of obligations that he 
would hae had EVC been new construction. Our developer did not have to 
provide the county mandated 1.5 parking spaces per dwelling, he did not 
have to retrofit any part of our building to comply with ADA, but he did 
provide reasonable accommodations for disabled members. However, since 
move in in 2004, at least five  of 56 unit owners have given up their 
cars completely,  and at least five others have proven to themselves 
that they do not need the luxury of a car, but continue to purchase 
monthly permits and park in the county garage. The lack of parking at 
EVC has definitely not  been a major  impact on sales or on home resales 
that I have seen.


--
~Rodney Elin~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
hen3ry at easternvillage dot org


> I'll add that "near mass transit" is not generally helpful in most
> cities, whose transit systems are only grudgingly accessible to people
> with motor disabilities.  During the four months I spent in a wheelchair
> last year, I was unable to use Boston's much-vaunted T, as many of the
> stations I wanted to go to had no elevators.  And you don't even want
> to get me started on the buses. :/
>
>
>         Ellen (grateful to have switched to the Mosaic Commons unit
>           nearest the carports)
>
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