Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Need information on Common House use

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On 8/25/2020 12:04 PM, Barbara Smith via Cohousing-L wrote:

> Our plans are before the Littleton Planning Board and among their questions 
> is: why do we need a common house? (I know -- this does not strictly relate 
> to the zoning bylaw, but we're trying to reassure them in as many ways as 
> possible.) One member maintains that a Common House is "never used”.

There are many messages in the archives on this topic. Long lists of what 
people do in the CH. Aside from activities, the CH is the center of the 
community. It is common space. Laundry, workshop, back up computer, kids 
playroom, pingpong table, exercise room, mail. Guest rooms.

I suspect this may be related to brand new communities compared to 20 year old 
communities. At 20 years, our community uses it more for meals, meetings, etc. 
than we did the first few years. The community would be very different without 
it. There would be no place for more than 10-12 people to gather for meetings 
or meals.

What might be a good idea is not to build a bunch of small rooms until you see 
how you use the space and have an idea of how large they need to be. 

One thing that happens is that if you walk through the CH at any given time, it 
may be empty. But if you sit there for a few hours, you see lot of stuff going 
on. People coming and going, using the facilities.  Not everyone uses all the 
facilities but each one is very important to some people.

Even city streets are empty for hours of the day.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines, Historic Takoma Park, Washington DC 
Where all roads lead to Casablanca