Cohousing-L Mailing List: On the lovely banks of the river Lune -- Forge Bank Cohousing in Lancaster

[Diana Leafe Christian (diana]

Hello,

I was really impressed with Forge Bank Cohousing too, situated on a long
narrow strip along the Lune River in in the countryside outside Lancaster,
a lovely green and pastoral area with rolling hills, meadows with hedges,
oak trees, and yellowish-grey sandstone "traditional-looking" homes in the
nearby village.

This 41-unit community was in development for about 7 years, and bought
their fabulous riverside location 4 years ago.  People have been moving in
over the last  8 months as the finish each set of buildings.

The site is a steep hillside going from high rolling green hills with oak
trees (a neighboring farmer's field) down to the river, with the duplexes
and townhouse-style row houses on three different levels. All have views of
the river from various heights.  Interspersed amount their white buildings
(some with light blue trim, others with light green trim) are the
yellow-gray stone buildings of the original site: a boathouse right on the
river; another long narrow building along their main street just opposite
the common house, which they use as a bike shed; and a large industrial
building (the original "forge," where linoleum was once made), which
they're renovating and will use for members' offices. Very cool.

Their two-story-high inside walls of their common house are a bright
scarlet/red orange, reminding me of a tomato or red pepper — really warm
and inviting. A glass roof runs about 50 feet between the common house
entrance and the small building just opposite it which houses their
laundry, food pantry, guest rooms, and bike storage room.  In the many
breakout conversations of our workshop on governance and decision-making
issues, people got together in groups of three out on the terrace in the
sun, on the first really warm day of an unseasonably long winter and cold
spring. It was glorious on the terrace, with the relatively loud murmuring
of the river just below.

Forge Bank was founded by a group of vegans, and so has agreements that one
of their three evening meals in the Common House one is vegan and the other
two vegan and vegetarian, and probably the same for their Sunday brunch. Of
their 57 adult members, about 7 are vegans, about 10 vegetarians who also
eat fish, and about 47 are omnivore). People may bring other foods to the
Common House for shared meals but if they bring their own meat, the
agreement is to keep them on separate plates than the ones they normally
use, I think.

      The founders meant Forge Bank to proivde eco-homes, which are
south-facing and super-well insulated, with the most kick-ass heavy, thick,
beautifully engineered, silently opening and closing  windows and doors
I've ever seen. They were also strongly committed to having relatively few
cars among members,  a commitment to car pooling and bicycling to town
(along a lovely riverside bike path), or to taking the local bus. Every
unit has a serious heavy duty  bike rack just outside their front door.
Most households have bikes, and some have  3 or 4 bikes: a road bike,
mountain bike, touring bike (I think someone said), and maybe a tandem.

         Forge Bank requested relatively few parking spaces from the local
planning authorities, which went greatly in their favor as they sought
planning permission. However now that they're living there, they see that
more people actually need their own cars than they'd thought; for example,
families with people who work elsewhere and/or who have young children. So
they've been discussing this issue some more.

     Forge Bank has several factors which highly correlate to community
health and success, in my view. For example, they get to choose their
members, as it's legal to do this in England, and so can choose new
incoming members based on their understanding of and support for the
community's values, vision, mission/purpose, lifestyle choices, and so on,
and on whether they generally seem to get along well with people. My host
for this visit, a process consultant for Appreciative Inquiry and other
similar deep-conversation methods, said how important she thought it how
was for cohousing residents to have a say on who their neighbors and fellow
members will be, and was surprised to hear this isn't possible in Canada
and the US because of  fair housing laws. However, I believe that when
affordable housing agencies, called social housing in the UK, are also
involved in a cohousing project, the agency's rules for inclusion supersede
the original legal rights, and the group must say yes to whomever can meet
the terms of the sale, as in North America.
Another correlation to success, in my opinion, is that many Forge Bank
members have all along been willing to read articles about and learn about
what tends to work well in community, re development as well as process,
and the group has allocated time and money to learn process and
communication skills. Thus some members are learning NVC, they've held
meetings to do the Appreciative Inquiry process and just hosted my workshop
on community governance issues. From what I can tell, some cohousing
communities are willing to do this and others are not (or not yet), and
those that do seem to do well and those that don't seem to run into more
challenges.
A third correlation to success, in my opinion, is their relatively high
percentage of Quakers and entrepreneurs. As far I can see in observing
communities over the years, the presence of Quakers tends to influence the
group with the energy of cooperation, collaboration, and tolerance, and the
presence of entrepreneurs with a "can do" attitude and practical knowledge
on how to manifest and manage projects. I'm also impressed with the fact
that they have a relatively high percent of professors or former professors
associated with nearby Lancaster University, which for sure will make for
intellectually stimulating conversations at Common Meals. ;)

I've visited two cohousing communities in England so far, and am just
loving it. (Today I'm in the far north visiting Findhorn Community in
northern Scotland. It's not cohousing but many coho-L readers may have
heard of it, as it's the oldest (50+ years), and one of the largest and
most famous ecovillages in the world. I'm thrilled to be here.

Diana





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