Mosaic Commons Minutes 11/15/2000

Minutes of Mosaic Commons Wrap-up Meeting
With Chris ScottHanson
Wednesday, November 15th, 2000, 3:30-6:30pm

Location: Homeport
Notetaker: Stephanie
Present: Dave, Cat, Scott (present for half of the meeting), San, Kai, Steph, and Chris ScottHanson

1) Hire Chris Scott-Hanson for two days to do the following:

Follow up on the 54 bedroom site in Wayland
Confirm Framingham is not receptive to cohousing
Confirm Sudbury is not receptive to cohousing
Follow up intensively on our town of preference:
Sudbury is our top choice, if it is feasible
Framingham is our second choice, if it is feasible and Sudbury is not.
West Concord is our third choice if neither Sudbury nor Framingham are amenable to cohousing.
Report his findings to us by December 8th.

2) Our town choices are in the following order: Sudbury, Framingham, W. Concord, 54 bedroom site in Wayland, Acton, Southboro, and Ashland

Dave and Michael: Chris recommends we look at comparable new construction projects (Townhouses, Sr. Residential Communities) in the town we will be focusing on. This will have to wait until we have located one town, but it must be done ASAP once we've located the town.
All: Get the incentive structure in place.
All: Create Bylaws and Administrative Policy Manual. Chris recommends we do NOT make the bylaws the controlling document for legal reasons. Having the Bylaws refer to the policy manual makes changing policies much easier and cheaper in long run.
All: Look at nvcousing.org to read their version of the Living There Manual. Chris will give us the unmodified version in .pdf format soon.

As expected, Chris found no sites appropriate for cohousing development on this trip.

Report from Concord:

Concord's new PRD Law appears to be very friendly to the objectives and logistics of cohousing. Chris met with the town planner for about 1.5hrs. From that meeting he felt encouraged by the possibilities in Concord. Their new PRD Law (to be approved in March/April by the town) will have provisions for up to triple density in certain districts. This could potentially mean that we could get up to 6 units per acre = 30 units on 5 acres which is perfect for cohousing.
The problem with Concord is price. It is very expensive to build or buy land there. He learned from the town planner that some single home lots have sold for as much as $600,000 and that the last six houses built in Concord have been about 6,000sq.ft.
A discussion ensued about the location of Concord relative to SVS and the concern about children spending too much time in the car to get to school. We agreed that only sites south of Rt. 2 will be considered and the closer to the SW corner of the town, the better (i.e. West Concord area).
Upon re-rating the towns on the list, Concord remained high on the list but below Sudbury and Framingham. Based on limited knowledge, we don't believe Sudbury and Framingham are options for cohousing, but Chris will re-investigate to make sure this is the case.

Report from Maynard:

Chris has been unable to reach the town planner for Maynard despite multiple attempts.
He saw a lot for sale in Maynard when driving through that looked interesting but has no further information on it at this time.
Dave and Catya believe Maynard's laws would not be welcoming to the kind of community we wish to create.
Maynard is #6 on our list of preferable towns.

Report from Southborough:

Chris looked at the area of town that town planners directed him to but was not impressed with what he saw. He feels he would need to talk to local developers more to get a better sense of the developability of Southborough.
There was a ½ acre lot in the middle of town that Chris was informed of by the town planners. The group ruled that site out feeling that it is too small.

Report from Wayland:

Chris did not investigate Wayland in depth on Wednesday but spoke to the town planner about a lot in the SE corner of the town. It is listed under Courtland properties and seems to be owned by the Hamlan family trust. This property is in a district which can be developed to house up to 54 bedrooms. Chris will investigate this further.

Other items discussed with Chris:

He strongly recommends that we do not select a site to develop with less than 3 or more than 7 equity households.
He recommends that the threshold for equity membership be between $4,000-$5,000 as there is a psychological shift that that point that he has observed in other groups.
It appears that Peter Jessop of Pioneer Valley is very interested in making his next development project a "design/build" project (this would likely be with Mary and Laura as architects). The group appeared to be interested in working with this team of professionals but no decision was made.
Chris gave us a new handout created by Cohousing Resources. It looks to be very helpful - especially with the legal and financial issues with which we continue to struggle.

Last modified: October 3, 2001