Property Development
The following pages and articles on this website are also tagged "Property Development":
Ann Zabaldo, moderator, Chuck Durrett, Chris ScottHansen, Don Tucker
This panel will discuss the vices and virtues of when and where to include future residents in the design process. From the beginning? After a site plan, housing plans or CH plan are developed? Can a community be called cohousing if there is NO resident involvement in the design process? What is the impact of including or excluding residents in the design process on community building including developing “social capital” among the future residents?
Chris ScottHanson, author of The Cohousing Handbook, together with his wife Kelly, provides consulting and “streamlined development” partnership participation for communities across the U.S. Chris now specializes in the startup phase of development, including land acquisition, feasibility, budgeting, scheduling and assembling the professional team. Numerous resources are available free on their website, including a Membership and Outreach Manual.
Cohousing Resources website (www.cohousingresources.com)
Cohousing Resources - on Cohousing.orgClay Mitchell, Liz Ryan Cole
This session will provide an overview of some of the issues co-housing communities face as they develop their cohousing project. Using a few case studies we will provide some introductory language, a take home list of references, and an opportunity to discuss zoning questions participants bring to share.
Liz Ryan Cole has lived in collective housing on and off since she went to Oberlin in 1968. She is part of a developing cooperative cohousing project with seasonal resort business near Hanover, New Hampshire
. Liz is a clinical law professor at Vermont Law School and Director of the Semester in Practice. Bruce Coldham
Cohousing is challenged with balancing the aspirations of custom-designed housing with the standardization (driven by the desire to realize cost affordability) of production building. This presentation explains how the offering of a small set of “basic unit types” with a modest “standard package of options” and the opportunity (disencouraged and priced accordingly) for customization at the discretion of the architect has produced a delightful, award-winning residential setting beloved by its inhabitants. The Rocky Hill cohousing community in Florence MA is the third in an evolving suite of cohousing projects by Coldham and Hartman that have dealt with this challenge.
Carol and Tom Braford
In many parts of the US, the demand for cohousing outstrips the supply. Too few cohousing developers and builders. One way to build more cohousing is to recruit other housing developers to take up the cause. While some are focused on this approach, we are trying a more grassroots method, turning development professionals and builders into cohousers, and turning buyers into developers and builders. In a region new to the movement, this may be the easier row to hoe. We will share how this is working in St. Louis and would love to hear what has worked in your community.
Kraus-Fitch Architects is nationally recognized as one of the most experienced architectural firms working with cohousing. In addition to full architectural services, Kraus-Fitch offers meeting facilitation and cohousing workshops focusing on programming and schematic site, common house and unit design. The office of Kraus-Fitch Architects is located at Pioneer Valley Cohousing, where both Mary Kraus and Laura Fitch have lived since 1994. Laura studied cohousing in Denmark in 1980, and both have visited and worked on cohousing throughout North America.
413-549-5799
Kraus-Fitch Architects website (www.krausfitch.com)
Kraus-Fitch Architects - on Cohousing.orgJoshua Rucker
Intentional communities want to welcome diverse residents including people with disabilities and older people. Accessibility is a factor. Legal requirements for accessibility are a baseline for thinking through both design and policy. This session gives an overview of the several statutes that have been enacted to help ensure nondiscrimination against people with disabilities both in design and program policies. They include: the Federal Fair Housing Act (FHA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The most pertinent law (FHA) includes seven basic design and construction accessibility requirements. This session offers guidelines to help professionals and the general public satisfy the federal requirements and better serve those with disabilities.
Cohousing Advocates: Joelyn Malone and Phil Stevenson
Cohousing Advocates' mission is to increase access to cohousing. We partner with developers to identify available sites for cohousing, and with cohousing groups to help them clarify their vision and find the site that's right for them. We've shaved years off the cohousing development process for clients by matching people with projects already in the works, where modifications to the original design can create great cohousing.
612-871-8196
Phil [at] cohousingadvocates [dot] com
Cohousing Advocates - website (www.cohousingadvocates.com)Jim Leach, Stew Mayer
Why does developing a cohousing community sometimes take 10 years or more to complete? Would groups have an easier time if they partnered with developers? Would it be more expensive? Would the group have to give up control? How can decision-making be handled fairly between cohousers and developers? This workshop explains in detail how a group and a development firm can successfully work together as partners. Questions that will be touched upon in detail include: a) What is the difference between a contractor and a developer? b) Who is taking how much risk and what is the cost of that risk? c) Where does the money come from? d) Budgeting and transparency.
Wonderland Hill Development Company builds villages and small neighborhoods based on the cohousing concepts that embody community, organic design and sustainable building practices and principles. With more than 30 years of development experience, Wonderland Hill Development Company is a pioneer in the high-quality Green Building arena, winning awards for almost all of their communities based on the sustainable features and Green Built strategies they design into all of them. Wonderland Hill is the largest developer of cohousing in the United States with 16 completed communities and 4 more in various stages of development. Wonderland's significant contribution to cohousing is well known, as the company has established a new model for streamlined development of cohousing in conjunction with the other leading cohousing professionals in the United States.
303-449-3232
Wonderland Hill Development Company websiteKatie McCammett & Jim Leach
Since the 1981 building of Seaside, Florida, New Urbanism has become one of the most significant movements in American architecture, planning and development dedicated to providing alternatives to suburban sprawl. Committed to developing the physical settings most likely to support close-knit relationships, cohousing is a perfect fit with New Urbanist development. Learn how to pitch your cohousing community to a New Urbanist masterplan developer. Learn to identify the most attractive opportunities for optimizing the natural advantages of cohousing neighborhoods within the larger context of planned New Urbanist developments.
Bob Engler
How can non-professionals succeed in taking on the role of “developer”? How can communities succeed in making affordable units a significant part of the their development projects? How and when should cohousing groups seek outside help and advice? This session covers these questions and more in a presentation of “The Housing Delivery Process.” A thorough familiarity with this process will help groups get from vision to permitting approvals, to financing, to construction. The focus will be on a specific set of critical decisions, and the key considerations that will help your group navigate your way to making the best choices.
A full-service architecture and development consulting firm, McCamant & Durrett Architects (M&D) was formed by cohousing pioneers Katie McCamant and Charles Durrett, the folks who wrote the book Cohousing, and started the movement in America. For more than 20 years, M&D has worked with groups and professionals to create cohousing projects worldwide, more than 50 to date. M&D helps cohousing communities save time and money because of the company’s vast experience with cohousing groups, its in-depth information about cohousing issues, and the speed with which they can solve issues. In addition to complete architectural services, M&D provides a range of cohousing consulting services. If you are an architect yourself, you might be interested in exploring employment opportunities at M&D, which has an immediate opening for a cohousing architect in their Nevada City, California offices. Send letter of interest to charles.durrett [at] cohousingco [dot] com.
Zev Paiss
It has been well documented that most cohousing communities are far more sustainable than almost all other housing options now available. But how does cohousing fit into the larger issues surrounding sustainable development? This includes land planning strategies, being part of a larger pre-planned development, local food production, reduced transportation requirements, mixed use options and the increased social interactions these strategies allow. This interactive presentation is designed for those who want to take cohousing to the next level and learning how this housing option works with the overall sustainability of future community developments.
Brad Gunkel, Eris Weaver
While many groups are looking for ways to create greater affordability in cohousing, many non-profit developers are looking for ways to create tightly knit communities in their affordable developments. Is this a marriage made in heaven? Or do institutionalized restrictions on non-profit developers make this partnership too encumbered to be worth pursuing? The reality tends to be somewhere in the middle and may be worth considering. Learn about the process and challenges of working with non-profit developers to create affordable rental cohousing through an interactive discussion with the architect and group process consultant for one such community.
Ann Zabaldo, moderator, Katie McCamant, Don Tucker, Chris ScottHansen
Each member of this panel will share their fondest and most nightmarish experiences building cohousing, from “absolutely do” to “run for your life.” These experts offer their version of the top five things that every person embarking on developing cohousing needs to know. This session will include a generous question and answer time for participants.
