Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Apartment Sharing Developer attempts to co-opt cohousing

[Reede Stockton (commercial]

There is one key element for me that needs to be added to your core concept
of private home, common house and some meals, and that is democratic
self-management.

Reede

On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 9:52 AM, Jenny Guy <jenstermeister [at] gmail.com> 
wrote:

> In marketing my community I constantly (and I mean constantly) encounter
> people who think Cohousing means any kind of shared housing or community.
> Because after all, 'co' just means together. So they're not wrong when they
> say "I lived in co-housing, it was a house with 3 roommates". I explain it
> by saying "Cohousing with a capital 'C' means...".
>
> I wish we had a more distinct name, but it's too late for that, so I guess
> we'll just have to keep explaining. We also could use better ways to
> describe other kinds of communities. We seem to be quite impoverished in
> our language for describing community.
>
> I don't think that trying to hold onto a definition of cohousing means that
> we're inflexible about it, but I do like having a core concept, and for me
> at its most basic it's a community where you have your own private home and
> there's a common house, and some meals. There is a retrofit cohousing
> community in my town with decidedly un-cohousing orientation, but no one
> has objected to calling it cohousing. It has separate apartments and a
> common house and is member managed. So I don't think anyone is being rigid
> about it, just trying to keep some kind of distinction for the sake of
> clarity.
>
> Of course different people will prioritize different aspects, and I notice
> the definition on Cohousing.org doesn't mention common facilities or meals,
> so maybe we are each feeling a different part of the elephant. If Cohousing
> doesn't have to include a common house or even one meal a month, maybe it
> is all up for grabs after all.
>
> Jenny
> Kingfisher Cohousing, Oakland Calif.
> www.BrookdaleCommons.org
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 7:57 AM, Philip Dowds <rphilipdowds [at] me.com> wrote:
>
> > Coho/US Friends —
> >
> > This definition of cohousing seems more architectonic than it should be.
> > For me, it raises some questions (see below):
> >
> > > On Dec 6, 2017, at 5:09 PM, Lindy Sexton <lindy.sexton [at] 
> > > cohousingco.com
> >
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Charles Durrett recently sent emails to Carmel Partners, the developers
> > of
> > > the Wellington Apartment Project in Denver, CO, to stop using term
> > > "cohousing" to describe their project because it is not cohousing. He
> has
> > > created a list of criteria, currently specific to senior cohousing, but
> > > which gives the basic criteria that a cohousing community needs to have
> > to
> > > be called cohousing. The criteria include:
> > >
> > > 1.     Co-developed, co-designed, and co-organized with the group.
> First
> > > and foremost the future residents are an integral part of creating the
> > > future community.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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