Cohousing-L Mailing List: Lancaster Cohousing UK success!!!

[Mark Westcombe (m.westcombe]

Hiyas,

 

To any UK based reader on the list, and to all of you in the US that I know
either through email contact or from last year's Boston Conference, here's
celebratory news of our project in Lancaster, UK: a site purchase this
coming week!! Made possible due to the credit crunch and a national
developer's insolvency which released 40 sites onto the national market at a
snip! We weren't greedy, we only took 1.

 

See you all in June/July at the Seattle conference,

 

Mark
Mark Westcombe
www.lancastercohousing.org.uk

Tel: 0845 456 2494

Site Purchase THIS WEEK

Inviting new member applications - 5 places available

 

After years of hard work, Lancaster Cohousing is finally close to making a
site purchase for our  25 unit zero carbon cohousing scheme!  We expect to
exchange contracts this week and then press release which site we've bought.
The next few months will be very busy with banks, accountants, solicitors,
architects and a big national recruitment round. It's exciting and we hope
to be able move in by Easter 2011.  

 

If you are interested in owning a private home, whilst living in a socially
and environmentally sustainable community visit our website:
lancastercohousing.org.uk. To find out more, come along to one of the
following events:

 

.         Saturday 9th May 3pm Celebratory Picnic (location TBC)

.         Sunday 10th May 3pm Public meeting (location TBC) - a chance to
hear about the project, to meet some of the members and to have a tour of
the site!

.         Sunday 24th May Brunch, Whale Tail Cafe at 11am 

.         Saturday 30th May Potluck party, 19 South Road.  Please bring food
to share

 

At present we have 13 households fully signed up and a few others are
expected to sign shortly.  We anticipate a total of around 25 households.
There will be 2-3 phases of taking new members and we will be prioritising
families and under 35's to achieve an intergenerational mix.  If you join as
a full member you are of course asked to sign a pre-sale agreement and to
put forward 30% of the unit price (as our current 13 member households have
done).

 

In the first phase we will accept up to 5 new member households.  These will
be chosen at our next 2 General Meetings and the deadlines for these are May
8th and June 7th.  Please apply before the first meeting if you can make
your 30% available by 20th May; this will be ahead of a big recruitment
campaign so you are more likely to secure yourself a place, and we'll also
invite you to participate in our initial site design discussions on 9th /
10th May.  If you are considering the first deadline and want to view the
site phone 01524 842924. 

 

The advantages of joining ASAP are

1. involvement in all of the design process; this includes site and home
design 

2. a reduction on the price of your home due to the higher burden of risk at
this stage

3. less competition for places 

 

If you may be interested please find more information on the website

 <http://www.lancastercohousing.org.uk> www.lancastercohousing.org.uk, and
if you have questions email

 <mailto:info [at] lancastercohousing.org.uk> info [at] 
lancastercohousing.org.uk or
phone one of the contacts given on

the website.

 

You'll hear from us soon about the site and other details; until then happy
daydreaming!   

 

Mark

Mark Westcombe
www.lancastercohousing.org.uk

Tel: 0845 456 2494