Co-Housing

Last year my vacation to Aspen woke me up and motivated me to create my first blog. The bottom of this one contains many images and reflections from Aspen, August 2009.

This year’s inspiration came from a weekend conference that put me into several visioning processes.

I attended a conference in Sarasota Nov. 19-21 and learned a lot about how Co-Housing groups move from conversations, to organization, to ground breaking to being neighbors in a sustainable community.

Oak Vista Village www.oakvistavillage.com is the name for the first Co-Housing neighborhood planned at Simmons Avenue and 10^th Street in Sarasota county. Sitting on ten wooded acres with grand oaks, palms, pine and citrus trees; it can accommodate up to 35 Single Family homes. I will be making the case for creating some of these as “affordable”, There are several ways this can happen and we will be exploring them in the next workshop, slated for Dec. 11-12, 2010.

The developer brought Zev Paiss here for the first of six workshops to build a community of co-housers together around Oak Vista Village. It was a very soft-sell approach to a practical way of living that has been discussed in several circles around town. We learned how other successful Co-Housing groups have designed their communities. He discussed the consensus process, homeowner association development and the partnership we can have with the developer. At the end of this weekend we learned the value of membership, including how much the developer is contributing to the process and helping residents with their deposit fees. We ended the weekend with a walk through the Ten Acre woods that is under contract for the next three months.

The property is divine. It reminds me of Myakka State Park. If you do not like trees, forget it. The owners gave us an informative tour and you could tell how much they loved this land.

Tracy Lux of Living In Community Network and Trace Marketing will be our local liaison and coordinator of our progress with getting the word out about this unique opportunity, I have purposely avoided that word. This is way more than a chance to save money, it is about living sustainably, ecologically, and efficiently. It is also about aging in place. www.cohousing.org

Most of us do not want to be put into a “home” when we get older. We want to stay in our own home. Bring the services to us whenever practical and pool our resources to save on services, utilities, communications and entertainment costs. These are some of the benefits of LIC that can be established by the resident/owners. This really is a self-governing body of neighbors with a bond that gets formed during the planning stages of the community.

When you move into your co-house, you will know all of your neighbors. And the trust and security this can bring to a village is invaluable. As members of the homeowners association from the beginning, before we have even broken ground, we will be designing our sustainable neighborhood.

I am Very Excited about this project and what it represents for the future of Sarasota. I hope you will join me in spreading the word about this new paradigm for Sarasota. For you. For the Planet.