[Greenbuilding] re What makes it Green? / cohousing

[Racheli Gai]

Hi Corwyn,
They certainly are neighborhoods, but they do have some special 
features:
While people own their own houses, we own a fair amount of land in 
common, which includes
a community garden (and some common chickens :)),  a common house 
(that, in the case of
Sonora cohousing includes a place for common cooking/dining; a common 
guest room; crafts room;
exercise/teen room; common  laundry facilities; kids room; workshop; 
pool, hot-tub; common lawn,
and a fairly extensive landscaping.
While our site is less than 5 acres, the place seems spacious because 
we don't have roads running through:
the parking lots are on the periphery, and the rest is car-free.  It's 
amazing the kind of different
feel this creates, and how much land it frees for better purposes.

Community decisions are made at community meetings, and we use 
consensus as our decision-making
process.

Racheli.


On Feb 16, 2009, at 2:06 PM, Corwyn wrote:

>
>
> David Bergman wrote:
>> I talk about co-housing communities in my CEU lectures, and often get 
>> a rolling eyes response.
> We used to call them neighborhoods.
> Thank You Kindly,
>
> Corwyn
>
> -- 
> Topher Belknap
> Green Fret Consulting
> Kermit didn't know the half of it...
> http://www.greenfret.com/
> topher at greenfret.com
> (207) 882-7652
>