Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Flattery by imitation

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Hello David and Kim --

Actually, David, the more recent "pocket neighborhoods" do, in fact, have small 
Common Houses.  If you get the book you will see many of them w/ gardens, a 
small indoor community building and other common amenities.

At Cohousing Collaborative we are urging people to use the pocket neighborhood 
model which really is a smaller version of cohousing lacking the somewhat 
significant input of future residents -- but WE put that piece in!   Here in 
the DC area commercial property for real estate development is so dear I fear 
the communities of 30 or more households close into the city are a thing of the 
past.  To make the deal affordable we get into numbers around 40 or more units. 
 We can find sites for 20 units but it's very, very expensive.  Sometimes, it's 
important to ride the horse in the direction it's going.   To wit, smaller 
communities that pack a lot of WOW into them.  

Frankly, sometimes I think a smaller CH is not the worst of disasters. Our CH 
is about 3, 500 s/f here at TVC.  I love our CH.  It has lots of meeting 
spaces.  It's expensive to maintain and time consuming to clean and time 
consuming to manage.  

What's important is having common space that allows EASY social interaction. 
BTW -- AARP did an entire FACT SHEET on cohousing which I reviewed for them.  I 
have the copied I edited but I don't know how to get it to folks as we cannot 
do attachments on this list.  I think if you just go the AARP website and 
search for 

FACT SHEET Cohousing for Older Adults

or just

Cohousing for Older Adults

it should pop right up.

Best --

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC
Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
Falls Church VA
703-688-2646

On May 8, 2012, at 4:27 PM, Grace Kim wrote:

> 
> David -
> While the article makes no mention of cohousing, the article is about pocket 
> neighborhoods - a type of residential community that architect Ross Chapin 
> (noted in the article) has helped developers to create.  He is very cognizant 
> of the role of cohousing in defining community oriented neighborhoods.  Which 
> is why in many of his pocket neighborhoods, Ross includes a common building 
> in the central green.  In his book, Pocket Neighborhoods, Ross devotes a 
> chapter to cohousing - I know this because I spoke to him at length about 
> cohousing and provided him with photos from my various visits.  
> 

> 
> 
> From: "David L. Mandel" <dlmandel [at] pacbell.net>
> Subject: [C-L]_ Flattery by imitation?
> 
> See http://pubs.aarp.org/aarpbulletin/201205_DC?folio=16#article_id=163858.
> 
> I guess you could say that. But funny there's no mention of 20 years of 
> cohousing proliferation, and too bad the residents of these places don't seem 
> to be given the opportunity to have even a minimal common house.
> 
> David
> 
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: 
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> 
>