Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Eugene Cohousing

[Kathryn McCamant (kmccamant]

I would not be so quick to jump to conclusions. 

It is hard to compromise with people who are unwilling to compromise and see 
reason. The project fit within the existing zoning and density for the 
property. Fewer homes would have significantly raised the prices and priced 
most of the community members out.  The fact that Oakleigh Meadow Cohousing has 
won these repeated appeals, and that the City has repeatedly re-approved the 
project should tell you something about the nature of the opposition.   While 
the delay has been hard for the community, it was still the least expensive 
option for them.  Once it's built, I have no doubt that the community will be a 
great asset to the neighborhood. 

This type of useless neighborhood opposition, and the American resistance to 
any reasonable density (afterall, we are just talking 2-story townhomes with 
plenty of room for gardens) within established cities is only adds to keeping 
housing prices high and cities car dependent.

I hope the larger cohousing community will support those communities that run 
into unreasonable neighbors..... unfortunately, this kind of unreasonable fear 
has killed or lessened many a good project. 

Katie 
-- 
Kathryn McCamant, President
CoHousing Solutions
Nevada City, CA 95959
www.cohousing-solutions.com
 



On 8/1/18, 4:54 AM, "Cohousing-L on behalf of T G" 
<cohousing-l-bounces+kmccamant=cohousing-solutions.com [at] cohousing.org on 
behalf of triciamill9 [at] gmail.com> wrote:

    I have been following this project for quite some time in the news, and it
    appears that the main concern from the neighbors is that the only access to
    the development is an extremely narrow, undersized, and unimproved dead end
    road. The neighbors didn't feel the City should be approving a project that
    will bring the traffic of 28 additional homes without the road meeting
    current safety standards, such as sidewalks and a sufficient road width.
    
    It looks like the neighbors were supportive of the development when it was
    originally proposed but then it grew in size and that concerned them.
    
    It is unfortunate that the cohousing group and the neighbors could not have
    compromised on the number of homes. There are several successful smaller
    cohousing developments, so it doesn't seem to make sense to me that a
    compromise would not have been better than continuous appeals (very
    expensive and time consuming, not to mention the loss of members!!).
    
    I started looking elsewhere after watching this go on for 5 years in the
    news but have been curious to see how it ended up playing out.
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