Your April news & updates |
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Good spring good people. May the pan-damn-demic wane precipitously, but may we continue to take the precautions necessary to protect each other. We are all tired of wearing these darn masks but wear them nonetheless as if your very future depends on it. Every time we get just a little cavalier we get bit in the butt.
Chuck Durrett
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Creating an Affordable Cohousing Community |
This is a 5-week online course by Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC), starts April 23, July 16, or October 8.
A big success last fall by the FIC who held a seminar for folks starting a new ecovillage for whom economics is too often a big impediment. There are many nascent cohousing groups in the same predicament.
Consultants, rezoning, buying a site, feasibility, how to start an affordable ecovillage and/or cohousing—that is session 1 starting this Friday, April 23.
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Mind, Body, Health & Politics—
Solving Homelessness
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For those interested in a broader philosophical discussion about solving homelessness in America—then Dr. Richard Louis Miller is the contemplative discussion and video /radio worth listening to.
The design of this new village for people who were homeless or very low income was inspired by cohousing.
We still have the need to sell 1,000 copies in order to have the book reprinted, so please pick up a copy at oroeditions.com use coupon code "solution" for a 30% discount. It will help get more villages built, and it will warm your heart.
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The Modern West—
Revitalizing Our Small Towns
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Small towns are threatened around the world. The Modern West with Melodie Edwards has a one-hour NPR podcast on starting to save small towns with things like cohousing based on this book, Revitalizing Our Small Towns. Stemming the tide of ghost towning.
Cohousing has played a significant role in helping small towns. Cotati (population 5,000) Cohousing mixed-use, the first in 30 years, and Nevada City (population 3,000) Cohousing, they had been talking about building affordable housing for years and years, and finally accomplished some.
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Haystack Heights Cohousing |
Cruising along—Spokane Cohousing (Haystack Heights Cohousing) is making things happen. First move-ins are slated for early summer. Gypboard is up, and cabinets are going in some of the houses—residents are excited. This group of future residents is clearly going to make this one very fun place to live—the payoff for their hard work so far.
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A new ecovillage (cohousing and farming and more) on this 6.2-acre site just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska will be just starting the grassroots efforts this June—if you know anyone in Nebraska, or who is interested to help create a new ecovillage, please have them email us at charles.durrett@cohousingco.com.
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'The Best of Both Worlds' explores the lives of residents in four cohousing communities in Northern California. It also examines senior cohousing communities and how living in them improves the quality of life of residents. We are reducing the price for the DVD to $25.95 (includes shipping), a perfect video by award-winning filmmaker John De Graaf to show prospective new members for your new cohousing community. This price is for people that are organizing groups only. For public or university audiences, please see Bullfrogfilm.com.
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Letter to Alexa N. Powell, City Planner |
Alexa,
My name is Charles Durrett, I'm very familiar with cohousing. I can’t say strongly enough that until intergenerational cohousing is certified (see senior cohousing certification attached), I recommend not using the zoning code "to make it easier to building cohousing." Give them decompensation when they make an application for sure, and when it is clear that the proposed "cohousing" community is cohousing. Developers will game the system as they have in numerous other towns that have favored cohousing in the code, and where developers have taken advantage of the ambiguity and sully the waters for subsequent real cohousing projects, see court cases 120682 and 120683 in the great commonwealth of Virginia litigated by Randall Greehan, Fairfax, Virginia, 703-447-2337.
See attached certification for senior cohousing which some very smart municipalities have requested before approving a new senior cohousing project. See 28-unit project, Village Hearth, North Carolina. It is certified and was therefore embraced by Durham, North Carolina, giving them the breaks necessary to accomplish their beautiful and economically feasible cohousing.
Thanks,
Charles R. Durrett
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Ya, howdy. I’m writing some chapter cover pages for a book about cohousing design. Would appreciate your favorite adage (maxim, axiom, truism, aphorism), probably recently penned about cohousing design. One to three sentences. My penned adage (albeit a little severe) is “If it doesn’t work socially, why bother?”
Thank you if you get inspired,
Chuck Durrett
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Cohousing's role in positively effecting waning small towns.
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