Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: "Instant Cohousing"

[Kay Argyle (Kay.Argyle]

Having members burn out can't be good for group cohesion, and I suspect that
retrofit cohousing would have considerably fewer burnouts. So the notion
that planning and construction are needed to bind the group into a community
may be dead wrong.

Retrofit might also escape a problem that has struck me -- years of planning
meetings weeds out some of the exact people the community badly needs after
move-in -- the "let me out of this room I want to DO something" people.

"With a retrofit
community, you settle for a less than ideal physical setup ...."

Don't let that consideration weigh too heavily. Speaking as someone with ten
years in a built-from-the-ground-up community, I would not describe the
results as an "ideal physical setup." There are trade-offs. Different group
members have different dreams. The site you find imposes constraints. Who or
what the community's neighbors will be depends on who develops the next land
parcel. Your dreams gets filtered through your architect. Budget constraints
rule things out. The contractor shakes his head over the more impossible
parts of the plans and builds what it is actually possible to build. Things
get built wrong, especially if you are trying to do anything innovative.

The experience of living in a community changes your mind about what would
be the ideal physical setup. Things it never occurred to you would matter,
matter, and things you thought would be important aren't. People who had
their heart set on some aspect during planning find they can't stand living
in a community, and move out, leaving whatever it was they wanted set
(sometimes literally) in concrete, for others to live with.  

Living in retrofit cohousing might in fact be excellent training for
building a new community. 

At least with retrofit you're left with the fantasy that, "If only we could
have custom-built, we wouldn't have (problem XYZ)." A
built-from-the-ground-up community doesn't have that comfort.

Kay
Wasatch Cohousing

 

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