Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Designing gathering spaces

[Nessa Dertnig (nessadertnig]

Hi again,

Thanks Jerry!  Where are you located?  It would be fun to meet you if you do 
come up here.

I wasn't part of this group until this past fall when most of the design 
decisions had already been made, so I can't speak directly to the question of 
why the gathering nodes and yards were not already set on the maps (though now 
I'm going to ask some folks about it!).  I think some of it had to do with 
wanting to get a feel for the built community before committing to certain 
things, and allowing some flexibility, though I also wondered a bit about it.  
I do know our group has had various forms of guidance from dohousing 
professionals, however, including design workshops. 

This lack of pre-planning does seem to cause some issues in our community now, 
though, because it seems like the only options we can do at this point are 
either to make absolutely sure that yards are equally sized, or change the 
condo fees to reflect different yard sizes (which is something that I don't 
think has been discussed as a possibility, and so might come as a surprise).

I guess I'm still trying to get clear on whether everyone out there in coho 
land thinks this issue is pressing enough to warrant being tackled immediately, 
or if it's okay to give everyone a very minimal yard for now (5-10 feet in 
front and behind their house) and put off the design workshop until fall when 
the summer marketing push has past (we are still trying to sell houses, after 
all).  There's some sentiment in our group that because there are only 9 
families moving in by summer time, that it's not enough of a pressing issue for 
all of us -- though others disagree and think we need to get this done now, as 
you were saying Jerry.

Would anyone out there advocate the more laissez-faire approach of letting 
things be fuzzy and uncertain for a while, or do most of you agree that it's 
much better to get things defined beforehand?  Some of our group wonders about 
possible conflicts later -- even if you say things are temporary for this year, 
it seems there will inevitably be problems getting people to give up things 
later.  How do you work with this kind of thing?

Also, has anyone heard of a community where yards are not defined at all, and 
how this has worked or not worked?

Take care,
Nessa





Message: 4
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:20:31 -0500
From: Jerry McIntire <jerry.mcintire [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Subject:  Designing gathering spaces
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Message-ID:
    <CA+rotZNccpkwg4WJ3twSC8kK9OTvggR-MEZETYXba7xekmv2Wg [at] mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Nessa,

Congratulations to you and everyone at Belfast on your imminent move-in! I
hope to visit you in June because of your similarities to our situation:
small town ecovillage with a commitment to affordable housing.

Regarding common and private spaces outside the homes, I think deciding
ahead of time how much yard an owner will be able to use privately would be
an important decision to make before move-in. In fact, it is such an
integral part of the value of a home, I can't imagine arriving at a price
without having that space defined.

As Sharon has pointed out, access for other members passing by, for
lawnmowers, etc. all need to be considered.

I would have thought that gathering places too would have been designed as
part of site planning, before any construction began. Of course, these are
my *assumptions*.

Since you have people moving in over the course of a year or more, I would
think that deciding now, before a minority start making de facto decisions
because they're living on site first, is important.

All the best, Jerry