Cohousing-L Mailing List: Dallas Cohousing Re: More Affordable Cohousing Models

[Angela Alston (angela]

We're doing the same in urban Dallas, looking to retrofit an existing  
warehouse or office building.

here in Dallas, those are much better built than apartment buildings,  
which just get thrown up.

Retrofitting is more affordable and more environmental--why build  
ground up and block more recharging of aquifers?

best
angela

Angela Alston
Dallas Cohousing
http://dallascohousing.org
972 669 8798

On May 31, 2011, at 7:31 PM, Jenny Guy wrote:

> Our group, Eastlake Cohousing in Oakland, CA is planning to buy an  
> existing
> apartment building and move in gradually as the existing tenants  
> move out
> over time.  No pressure, anyone already living there when we buy can  
> stay as
> long as they want, whether or not they join the community.
>
> Within the first year, we'll start using one unit as our common  
> house, and
> few years down the road, we plan to remodel 3 units into a glorious  
> common
> house.
>
> This will be much more affordable than building new.  I'm excited to  
> see
> that new-build cohousing is picking up again; I love it when a new  
> community
> is built!  But for those of us who can't afford that, I think this  
> will turn
> out to be a very nice alternative.  New Brighton Cohousing near  
> Santa Cruz,
> CA has already done this.
>
> We are looking at apartment buildings with central courtyards, where  
> all the
> front doors open onto the courtyard.  If we were brave enough to  
> move into a
> shakier neighborhood, we could buy several bungalows on a block and  
> take
> down the back yard fences, which would give us a really glorious  
> common
> yard.
>
> Jenny Guy
> Eastlake Cohousing, Oakland CA (not to be confused with East Lake  
> Commons
> Cohousing in Georgia)
> also known as North Oakland Cohousing (since our first potential  
> site was in
> North Oakland)
> http://north-oakland-cohousing.org/
>
> On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 4:54 AM, Zev Paiss <zpaiss [at] comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Friends,
> >
> >  please consider adaptive
> > reuse or banding together to purchase a neighborhood of abandoned
> > homes and start the long conversion process in our failing
> > communities. Cohousing has much to offer but we must steps outside  
> > our
> > traditional model of new construction and look at the possibilities  
> > of
> > conversion, increasingly collaborative design (think foreclosed
> > McMansions), and rental communities as one future for this movement.
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