Re: Designing gathering spaces
From: Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizmgmail.com)
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:45:45 -0700 (PDT)
We built our whole community at once, but only half moved in at the start.

We had defined our front yards as common spaces, with landscaping 
responsibility going to the community. But we didn't have any community money 
for that, so all us early folk went ahead and landscaped...

Which was a great solution, except that some of us early folk really took over 
the spaces near us. For example, I'm in a middle unit, and, "for marketing 
purposes" I went head and planted the front of my entire building.

Now new owners are moving in and they don't really have space... they ask me 
"can I move this flower?". Well honestly, of course they can move it, its in 
THEIR front yard, not mine. But being good communitarian's my neighbors feel 
bad moving or changing what I put in.
And that is not really fair for the new folk.

Our backyard definition is that it is semi-private for "about the same 
footprint as your home". So far that seems to work. (I'm pretty sure we have 
drawings as Sharon suggested.)

Fencing or limiting the backyard with plants requires the approval of the 
others in the same building, which again means that newcomers may come in to 
find they approved something they didn't even know about....

As far as community gathering spaces, you need to acknowledge that once spaces 
are created it takes awhile for them to move, even when there are new folk 
present. 
So we started without common house occupancy and several of our northern most 
porches became the hang out spots. It has taken some time for that to even out 
and include the more southern porches as well. 
(It only took winter to get us into the habit of going to the common house once 
it had permits.)

You might want to look for, and promote, gathering spaces that will still be 
central after the whole community is finished.

-Liz
Elizabeth Magill
www.mosaic-commons.org




On Apr 23, 2012, at 4:50 PM, Nessa Dertnig wrote:

> 
> Hello there,
> 
> I'm a member of Belfast Cohousing and Ecovillage in Maine, and we're a
> couple weeks away from having our first members move in (yay!).  We're
> doing the building over time, so some other units will be started this
> spring, and we're hoping to have the last ones finished in about a year and
> a half.   What this means is that some people will be living on the land
> before the whole community is finished being built.
> 
> So my question has to do with designing community gathering spaces and
> setting boundaries for yards.  We didn't put a set space for yards in any
> of our legal documents, wanting to retain some flexibility around this, and
> nor are the gathering spaces set on any maps -- the thinking was that once
> the houses were built we'd figure this out.  So now the question is, do we
> try to accomodate those folks who are moving in next month and over this
> summer and fall by mapping yards and gathering spaces now, or does it make
> more sense to wait until all the homes are done and we can get a better
> sense of how the whole community space feels?
> 
> We have a divergence of opinion on this issue -- some people think that
> it's unrealistic to expect people to wait up to a year and a half before
> they can settle into the space around their houses because they have no
> designated yards, and believe that space will just be claimed and used
> around houses anyway, which will make it more difficult in the long run, if
> the claimed space is really more appropriate for a community node or
> something else.  Other people believe that we can't effectively plan our
> outdoor spaces until the community is completely built, and that the people
> moving in now are lucky to be on the land first and can wait until the rest
> of us are moved in before we plan these things.
> 
> Any input on the designing of nodes/gathering spaces and yards, including
> when it's appropriate to do it, as well as how it's best done (few-hour
> long workshop by all members? land use committee coming up with a
> preliminary plan and opening it up to community comments and changes?
> etc.?), would be greatly appreciated!
> 
> Thanks so much,
> Nessa
> 
> Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage, where we're still looking for a few new
> members to fill out our community!
> mainecohousing.org
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: 
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> 
> 


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