Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Designing gathering spaces

[Nessa Dertnig (nessadertnig]

Hi again,

Thanks for all the great responses so far.  Everyone's different perspectives 
help me see our own situation more clearly. 


Sharon, I totally agree that a map with labeled yards sounds like a great 
idea.  To me it seems like one way of making sure that everyone is clear what 
boundaries are, so there are no misunderstandings.  At the same time, one of 
our members used to live at Cobb Hill in Vermont and I seem to remember her 
saying that over there they never demarcated any yards and that it was always 
fine.  Is there anyone out there from Cobb Hill (or a community with a similar 
situation) who would be willing to chime in on this to give a different 
perspective?  On one hand I would like to think that no one would take 
advantage -- on the other, it does seem like everyone might have different 
expectations and that it could be better if things were clear from the 
beginning.

When you said (in point 2.) to "let demarcations float" do you mean that we 
should give a general outline of what we think yards will look like, but not 
confirm this in our documents until a year after everyone moves in?   Also, I 
really like the idea of ongoing discussions about how everyone is feeling about 
how the space has been allocated.  


One thing:  Would you be willing to elaborate more on what you meant when you 
said that self-regulation in communities is a problem?


Nancy, to answer your questions, we have two rows of houses with a central path 
down the middle, but all houses are facing south (they are passive solar 
houses).  The houses are mostly duplexes, but we have two triplex units and one 
fourplex, and there is maybe 15-25 feet between houses (side to side) and about 
100 feet between the two rows.  Our Common House will be in the middle of the 
back row, with an open view to the south (for an image of our site, click here: 
http://mainecohousing.org/homes/homes.html).  The Common House is not yet 
built, and we're hoping it'll be done in about a year or so -- which means, of 
course, that people will have to find other gathering spaces for quite a while 
yet.  We have 42 acres, and our houses are clustered on about six acres.


Ann, that's an interesting question about what happens when spaces are upgraded 
-- in our community we don't actually have basements, but can you think of 
another situation where this might happen? Do you think this would apply for 
things like decks or tool sheds attached to houses, and so on?  I find it 
really interesting to read documents from other communities to see how they've 
worked things out (wait, did I just say it was really interesting to read 
documents??!), but mostly these things are not available on-line (it seems to 
me).  Are communities usually pretty willing to share that information, do you 
find?  It would be great to see what Pioneer Valley came up with about this.


Liz, I hear you about the complications that may happen with temporary 
gathering spaces.  We have tilled up a temporary garden plot for this summer 
and will certainly be gathering around that space, and there is some worry from 
some members about people getting attached to this, when it hasn't been fully 
thought through yet (we're doing it because people want to get out there and 
start putting down some roots on the land, no pun intended).  But otherwise I 
do hope that we can start putting community spaces in places where they will 
make sense for the long-term.  Otherwise, it seems like your process around 
yards has been less structured than some others -- would you say that it has 
worked well, or do you wish that it had been more well defined at the beginning?


A couple other questions:  What are some successful processes that communities 
have used to map community spaces and yards?  Is it done by a committee and 
then presented to the others?  Or by the whole community at a workshop-type 
event?

Thanks again!
Nessa


mainecohousing.org