Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: RFPs and developers

[Dirk Herr-Hoyman (hoymand]

At Arboretum Cohousing, where we are doing self-development,
our approach was to do a "negotiated contract" with our architect,
development consultant, and general contractor.    This different
from an RFP in large part that we weren't doing a sealed bid process.

The development consultant was first, we did solicit proposals from
several likely candidates, which I suppose could be termed an RFP
as we did say what we were looking for in a written solicitation.
The development consultant (DC) was engaged in a fixed price
arrangement, there was no at risk money or profit potential which
is where this differs from a pure Developer.  Certainly a partner.
One of the things looking back that a pure Developer could have
addressed was the financing challenge, which we just barely managed
to solve.  If Cohousing is to be more widespread, having some
Developers that know how to do it, taking the financial risk and
sharing the decision making with the forming community, is
one of the ways I could see evolving.

Our DC then aided us in selecting an Architect, which was similar
to how we selected the DC.  We contacted a few likely candidates
and did interviews with our Board.  The Architect put together a  
preliminary
spec (I'm simplifying, this took a while).
During this period we also retained Legal Council, which you will
need for several aspects, and when we got close to the actual
build, an Accountant.

From there, we had a much more elongated
selection process for General Contractor, where we had 6, and then
3, and then 2, and finally 1.  An RFP would have likely given us
a HIGHER cost, if we did it at the preliminary spec stage,
as the General Contractors would have to go high to cover their  
unknowns.
Also, we had our Architect and the General Contractor interact
in this negotiated contract stage to refine the design to be
buildable within cost constraints.  You don't just whip out
a building design and get it right, an iterative approach is what
works better.  Our DC, who has years of experience on both
the contractor and developer sides, was helping determine
when to let go of General Contractors, you can only engage
these parties so long and they have to have a real chance to
get the work.

Right now, we are in the midst of building.  See http:// 
arboretumcohousing.org
for the latest details :-)  We just HAD to pick the worst winter in  
20 years
to build <sigh>.  Good working relationships with all of the above
parties has been crucial for us as we literally weather the storms.

Contracts are important, noone should be working without
having them, but you also need parties that you just plain
feel good about working with.

Maybe when Arbco is built, I will write an article about how this worked
for us...  Meanwhile, I need to get back to our Finish Selection  
process!

--Dirk
On Feb 19, 2008, at 7:05 PM, Craig Ragland wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> There is a major difference between a partner and a contractor.
>
> IMHO, I would only want to work with a Developer that is a partner  
> and I
> don't find the idea of trying to begin a partnership by mailing out  
> RFPs
> attractive at all. I would network and talk with real people about  
> real
> experience in the real world to find a real developer who is  
> attractive to
> working with our cohousing group - to become our business partner  
> in a new
> adventure.
>
> This is how New Earth Song identified Greenworks Development as a  
> potential
> cohousing development partner. Will it work out? Don't know - so  
> far so
> good, but ask me in a year or two.... or you can ping me right now (
> craig [at] songaia.com) if you are browsing the Coho-L archives from the  
> vantage
> of 2009 or beyond.
>
> I expect that my developer partner would seriously consider using  
> an RFP
> process as one approach toward identifying and working with various
> contractors, including builders, engineers, planners,  
> infrastructure folks,
> and possibly even architects (but that's another conversation).
>
> Developers do deals to cause real estate projects to happen. Other
> professionals are the ones that do the "real work" (that's a joke,  
> for good
> deal-making is very real work).
>
> Personally, I would not consider entering into a contract-driven
> relationship with a Cohousing Developer... I would insist on a strong
> contract, but approaching it form a contractual perspective would  
> seem to
> set it up for an adversarial relationship, which I would probably  
> loose if
> push came to shove because professional developers are better at  
> deal making
> than I am.
>
> By trying to develop a real, authentic relationship, I believe we  
> could more
> creatively develop a true win-win partnership (supported by a written
> contract).
>
> In my vision, the wide-spread growth of cohousing depends on more  
> quality
> partnerships between effective forming cohousing groups and  
> professional
> developers. We need to nurture more professional cohousing  
> developers and we
> need them to help us be more successful at creating our communities.
>
> Craig
> _________________________________________________________________
> 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