Note corrected date - Friday, July 10, not Thursday, July 9 -- Raines
It takes time, energy and money contributed by the future-resident group to get a cohousing community built. Finding suitable sites at a reasonable cost in the Bay Area has been very difficult for many years... so when a site like the one described here becomes available, we're inclined to jump at the chance to see if a future resident group (as well as some outside investors) can be assembled.
It has come to our attention that a downtown Oakland development site already entitled with planning approvals for 40 market-rate residential condominiums is for sale at a very reasonable cost. The site is on 14th Street, between Martin Luther King and Jefferson Streets, just five blocks away from Swan's Market Cohousing. The approved plans are available for your viewing at:
http://www.632fourtee... .
When looking at the floor plans, right away we started to think about how, with some relatively minor design changes, the square footage currently planned for 2 or 3 units on either Level 1 or Level 7 could be converted to a common house including 715 square feet of outdoor space on either level.
We sent Cohousing Partners (the development arm of the former Cohousing Company) this info, and Katie McCamant responded "......I'd love to work with a group that is ready to take advantage of this opportunity. .
. but need someone else to initiate the community." That means: a community ready to jump in and put up some money to tie up the site.
So we decided to call a meeting to bring together those who would like to explore starting a future-resident group for this site, 5:30-7:30 PM at Swan's Market Cohousing in Old Oakland. Persons not wishing to live in cohousing, but who might consider investing such a project are also most welcome.
Due to the economic downturn there are now more East Bay sites available at reasonable cost than in the past couple of decades. And there is good reason to believe that another suitable site would be significantly
easier to find now than it would have been as recently as a couple of years ago, if for some reason the site we'll be looking at on the 10th doesn't work out.
Joani Blank
Cohousing Enthusiast, Resident of Swan's Market Cohousing.
Raines Cohen and Betsy Morris
Cohousing Coaches, East Bay Cohousing
Lorraine, take a look: the date is already changed to Friday. The email with the Thursday date was a typo. Looking forward to seeing you in San Francisco on Thursday evening!
We just posted invites you can download, print, and share, for anyone interested in helping recruit for this project: http://files.meetup.com/84213/EBCOHO%20invites%20-%20Down...

You can discuss the project and the general potential of downtown Oakland cohousing here on our message boards:

http://www.ebcoho.org/messages/boards/thread/7208239#2881...