Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: participation in decision making

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Jan 8, 2015, at 8:10 AM,

> Diana Leafe Christian <diana.leafe.christian [at] gmail.com>
> Several years ago a resident of Two Acre Wood cohousing, the late
> architect Michael Black, observed that in cohousing in the US, by the
> time of move-in, 80% of the residents had not been there when the core
> group and architect designed the community -- they had not
> participated in the design at all but they still wanted cohousing.

I wonder what his criteria were for participating in design. Or of those where 
there at move-in. 

While only a small team worked directly with the developer, everyone had 
continual updates and discussions about specific decisions in almost weekly 
meetings. The 80% number sounds more like the number of people who dropped out 
during the process from the first meeting to move in. At move-in we only had 
one unit not sold and that one was under contract. 

Ann Zabaldo would remember more accurately, but I only remember 2-3 households 
who joined rather late, in the last few months. They were still very involved 
in the design process as we chose furniture, kitchen stuff, fabrics, made final 
decisions on what to complete, etc.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines, Washington DC
Save Our Planet. It's the only one with chocolate.