Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Forming group crippled by new members

[Sophie Rubin (yophiest]

What methods exist for avoiding this problem?

Would love to hear from folks that navigated something like this
successfully.

On Sun, Mar 30, 2025 at 18:38 Fred H Olson <fholson [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> I recently corresponded with someone who with their partner had been
> involved with forming a cohousing community. The forming group appears
> that it may fail to get a community built. It seems like a cautionary
> tale worth sharing.
>
> After having lived in another cohousing community, - a wonderful
> experience - the couple moved and started working on creating a
> cohousing community in their new area. They made a lot of progress
> during more than five years, but they were very sad that, over the
> final year they were involved, one couple with a very different vision
> of community and cohousing joined the group. Since the group was
> self-selecting and the new couple seemed oblivious to their being a
> bad fit (non-fit) and chose to stay, my correspondent and their
> partner decided to leave. The group has dwindled precipitously to
> three households over the time the new couple has been involved . The
> groups high point was about 15 households. The group had been using
> sociocracy but likely no more. My correspondent still loves the idea
> of cohousing but just does not feel they can start from square one
> again.
>
> Fred
>
> --
> Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
> Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532 My Link Pg:
> http://fholson.cohousing.org                  ybb_
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