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Middlesex Senior Cohousing -- Building the first senior cohousing community in New England!
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Find the flip flops! Clean off the canoe! Slather on the sunscreen! It's time for senior summer camp!
Nineteen of us are heading off next month for a weekend retreat at a rustic lakeside resort in New Hampshire.
We're imagining this weekend is going to be a snapshot of what our post-retirement lives will be like in senior cohousing. Sure, we're going to swim, kayak, play games (Bananagram, anyone?), and eat together. But best of all, we'll have tons of down time for getting to know each other better.
Remember when you were in school, and you had all that time just for hanging out with friends? Wasn't it great? And don't you miss it? We do too. We think that experience is essential for creating robust community, and we're going to make it happen again in our future senior cohousing community. Maybe this is a new trend? Dorm Life for Seniors?
June is peak strawberry season, so cut up a bowlful (don't forget the cream) and take a look at what's in our June newsletter:
- Project Update
- Cohousing in the News: "The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream" book and TED talk by journalist Courtney Martin
Yours in community,
Victoria & Mayhew
Co-founders
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No Information Meeting in July
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Maybe you noticed?
We didn't hold an informational meeting in May or June. And we're holding off for July until we have more information about the site in Littleton we're negotiating on.
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Littleton, Maybe?
In early May we and our developer started negotiating the purchase and sale of a property in Littleton, MA. It's not been a smooth process. And guess what? We're still negotiating!
The Littleton site isn't perfect, but it does tick some important boxes, one of which is zoning that encourages senior housing projects.
Littleton has taken a big, progressive step in recently putting in place a "senior overlay district." That means that if a developer (like us) proposes to build a senior housing project within this district, and the planning board approves it, the project is spared the politically fraught, months-long, and costly process of going before Town Meeting for further approval.
Which is no small thing, especially for seniors like us who are self-developing our future homes and who are (at least some of us) counting the grains of sand left in our hourglass.
Watch this space in July for updates on our negotiations.
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Architect Selection Underway
This month we sent requests for proposals to four architects we're interested in. And we're eagerly awaiting their proposals in mid-July.
It will be a tough choice. They're all great people to work with. They've all designed multi-family housing. Their work is in line with the principles of New Urbanism, of which cohousing is a leading example. Two have designed one or more cohousing communities. And they are excited to design the first senior cohousing in New England. 😊
For our part, we can't wait to see their ideas for our future neighborhood!
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More New Members!
Over May and June we added 4 more Explorer households to our community.
We now have 9 equity ($$) member households, and 10 Explorer households.
This amounts to a total of 25 people participating in the project.
And our mailing list has ballooned to 800 names.
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Journalist Courtney Martin lives with her husband and young daughter in Temescal Commons, a cohousing community in Oakland, California. She's the author of
The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream
(2016).
Watch this inspiring TED talk of Martin in which she catalogs the benefits of living in community.
Martin argues that when people’s lives become rooted in communities, they focus less on themselves and put more of their energy into creative ways to make each other's lives easier, healthier, and more fun. In such a setting, with its built-in safety net, Martin sees how the lost art of neighborliness is recovered and new rituals marking life events are created.
Her message is right on target for us baby boomers. We are reinventing the American Dream for seniors. We are re-imagining what it means to age in place AND in thick community. Not home alone, but with neighbors who know and care about each other and provide the kind of nurturing daily care we all need to thrive, right to the end.
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About Middlesex Senior Cohousing
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We are 19 households (25 people) from Metro West Boston aiming to build the first senior cohousing neighborhood in New England.
We're looking for land on which to build a collaboratively designed, self-managed neighborhood of 20 - 30 privately-owned, clustered, energy-efficient homes. With abundant open space, gardens, and a large outdoor commons. Also a large common house with extensive amenities, including guest suites, gourmet kitchen, and great room for community meals and celebrations. Other amenities may include spaces for woodworking, arts/crafts, offices, and yoga/exercise.
We're Looking for New Members!
Go to our website (below) to learn more. And take our
Survey of Interest
to find out if our future neighborhood might be just what you're looking for.
Learn about cohousing at the Cohousing Association of America
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