Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: RFPs and developers

[Dirk Herr-Hoyman (hoymand]

Hi Tom-  Arboretum Cohousing did hire a Development Consultant,
which is a limited version of a Developer.  We formed our own
development LLC, so we weren't looking for a partner to share
financial risk/reward, rather this is our main consultant (along with
an Architect).


We did have a set of things we were looking for a development
consultant to do, more or less a job description, which was provided
to the candidates.  That would approximate an RFP, but wasn't
an actual RFP.  I think your topics you have outlined below are
the types of things we covered.

What we did was to identified a number of likely candidates, and
then did a series of interviews.  We had one large interview
with the Board and then some follow up meetings with specific
individuals.  We were looking at competency and just plain fit
with our group.

We invited the candidates to submit
a proposal for their scope of services, including compensation,
after we had spent some time together.
This is more like a negotiated contract, rather than an RFP bid.
If you went this way, you would also want to have some
sort of references of prior projects, with the ability to interview
a few folks.  We did do this, both in terms of existing relationships
(some on our Board did know our candidates) and seeking out
prior projects.

It would help if you had some neutral party to look over any
proposal and help negotiate a final agreement.  Perhaps you have
this experience in your group, but it still helps to have an
outside opinion of someone to be objective.  Legal council to
work out the details of a contract can be valuable at this point too.

Hope this helps.  --Dirk

On Nov 29, 2007, at 10:04 AM, Tom Hammer wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> We have 3 potential developers interested in partnering with us, and
> we are considering the RFP model for choosing one.  Below are some
> thoughts we  have.
>
> Have any groups who have used developers or are currently working with
> developers used a Request for Proposals (RFP)?
>
> We are also not sure what questions to ask in some of the sections
> below and could use help there, too:
>
> - Statement of our Vision
> - Statement of our Goals (clustered, green, 30-40 units,
> multi-generational/income, etc etc)
> - Financial Arrangements
> - Timeline
> - Accountability
> - Partnering
> - Marketing
> - Design Sessions (Charettes)
> - Responsibilities
> - Subcontracted resources (how are they selected, and can we make
> recommendations?)
> - Green and its influence on design. Experience?
> - Co-housing and its influence on design. Experience?
> - Compensation for Sweat Equity Hours.
>
> Many thanks for any help you can give us on this.
>
> Tom Hammer
> for Concord Village
> southern Chester County, PA, where we are putting in a bid on some
> land within walking distance of a small town.
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/

--
Dirk Herr-Hoyman
Arboretum Cohousing in Madison, WI
http://arboretumcohousing.org