Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Urban cohousing: Common house on roof?

[Joani Blank (joani]

> Sounds wonderful. Is there a bathroom and can they get permitted to 
> put a full kitchen up there for common meals?

As for getting people to use the CH, yes, put the mail boxes up 
there, and not right next to the elevator.  The group may have to 
work something out with the post office to get them to deliver the 
mail knowing that it's going to be further distributed before being 
delivered to the intended recipient. Or you could just not tell them 
the P.O, and trust someone in your group to remove the mail from the 
conventional "boxes" where they are delivered now and distribute it 
to people's boxes upstairs.

Another thing to do to get people to come to the common house would 
be to have hot coffee and tea available there in the AM before people 
head for work, and perhaps wine or juice and snacks for after work 
times, if not every day, perhaps three days a week.

 Also get a big screen TV, a cheap DVD player, (a popcorn machine), 
and a community subscription to Netflix and have a movie there 
several nights a week for adults and teens, and have little kid 
flicks on weekends and maybe even late afternoon on a weeknight or two.

Having a wonderful kids' room up there, maybe even paying a teenager 
to watch the little ones several late afternoons a week would be 
good. And really discourage folks from having their own washers and 
driers, so that they have to come up to the CH to do their 
laundry!  One more thing is to challenge the green thumbs among you 
to grow decorative stuff and veggies at least in pots or planters in 
the outdoor area on the roof.

So you an still get from your car to your unit without seeing your 
neighbors. Some people manage to do that all the time anyway even if 
they live where the parking is on the periphery.  But if you give 
people all kinds of good reasons to go to the common house, I believe 
that most of them will.   Of all these ideas, I'm guessing that 
getting the mailboxes up there would be top priority.

Joani




Joani Blank
land line : 510-834-7399 (preferred)
cell: 510-387-1315
joani [at] swansway.com