Macrobiotics Today, July/August 1994, Vol. 34, No. 4
"Developing a Macrobiotic Housing Community: Part I" Carol Brown Eilber and Charles Eilber
"Things that people once took for granted - family, community, a sense of belonging - must now be actively sought out." From Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves by McCamant and Durrett.
Every time the phone rings these days we get more excited about our housing community. Calls and letters have come from 22 states, Canada and Norway. Some of these people already have come to visit and others are expected this summer.
You may have read about us in the March/April 1994 issue of Macrobiotics Today. We've organized to build a community of 24 homes and a common house in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. Our goal is to create a community that can function as an extended family - one that can relieve some of the stresses of daily living by having members share meals and organic garden chores and in other ways look out for one another.
Since our dream is to have similar macrobiotic communities all over the world and because we're receiving requests for information on how to start a community, we'll tell you what we've done this year. Updates will follow from time to time in Macrobiotics Today to chart our progress toward the completion of our community - the first of its kind anywhere.
Getting Started
In February 1993 we invited people with an interest in macrobiotics to a potluck to discuss forming a community. Throughout the spring we met to inform ourselves and to define what we meant by community. Part of this preparation included a trip by Chuck and Carol Eilber to Winslow Cohousing situated on Bainbridge Island, an easy commute by ferry to Seattle. By June we had a basic description, a timeline, and a narrative about what it would be like to live in our community (see "A Weekend at Great Life - A Vision of Community," Macrobiotics Today, March/April 1994).
Intentional Community or Cohousing?
In our basic description we determined that members in our community will be financially independent of the community. This makes us different from many other intentional communities where people depend on community business to earn income. But we are similar to intentional communities in one respect in that our members share a common philosophy - in our case, macrobiotics. We follow this to the extent that the common meals five nights a week will be macrobiotic. What people cook in their own homes is up to them.
The primary model for our group, however, is based on the cohousing characteristics described in Cohousing by McCamant and Durrett: participatory process, intentional neighborhood design, extensive common facilities, and complete resident management.
Other Attributes of Our Community
- Twenty-four households and a common house on about 10 acres easily accessible to Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh. - The single or joined houses and common house situated to preserve remaining land for a community garden, recreation and relaxation. - Overall design to encourage community participation and sharing, including pedestrian streets and commons, while also protecting privacy. - Complementary and earth-friendly homes, individually designed, but following agreed-upon guidelines for exterior appearance. - Diversity of people generally following a macrobiotic lifestyle: vegetarian diet of whole foods, moderate exercise, and other healthful approaches to daily living. People interested in healthy lifestyle for the planet. - Shared activities centered on macrobiotics such as: common house meals, group activities, lectures, cooking lessons, promotion of visitors from international macrobiotics communities, a community organic garden. Members will have classes in quantity cooking and menu preparation. - Community meetings conducted by consensus. Members will have the opportunity to study consensus building and conflict resolution processes. - Size and price of homes determined by individuals. - Rental units a possibility. - Shares in common house figured according to square footage of homes. -A secure financial and property management system to assure fiscal responsibility and proper maintenance. Administration will be based on bylaws, covenants, and procedures developed by legal and financial professionals to assure legal and fiscal integrity and protect the rights of individual members and the community.
Timeline
1993 - Find a core group of interested people; research necessary agreements and continue to refine overall concepts.
1994 - Find land, design houses, and create overall community design, secure financing, begin site development.
1995 - Begin building houses, including common house and other shared facilities.
Getting the Word Out and Following Up
During the summer we ran ads in Macrobiotics Today and Philadelphia's MacroNews. The same ad appeared later in One Peaceful World: "Wanted Macrobiotic families and individuals interested in establishing a housing community in North Carolina near Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and Research Triangle Park. For more information..."
The inquiries came, spurring us on to the following actions in the fall: we resumed our biweekly meetings, sought out a cohousing consultant, decided to hold a meeting in January to find more local members and another in April for people from out of state. And in December each household began paying dues of $25 a month to continue for one year. This amount will be deducted from our down payment so that households joining later will invest the same amount.
From the start, we pondered the question of how to keep people who live at a distance informed and involved. Carol spent many hours on the phone and started a series of "Updates" which now have become the newsletter "With the Grain." Involvement of out-of-town people was part of the reason for the April meeting and for doing this series for Macrobiotics Today. We also began to encourage people who couldn't come in April to visit at another time. And we started the practice of holding meetings in other cities whenever we traveled for business or pleasure.
Getting the word out repeatedly has been our marketing strategy.
The types of things we do most often are illustrated in "Ten Ways to Promote the January 30 Housing Meeting for Under $10." 1. Place a column in the January Triangle Macrobiotics newsletter about the housing community including an invitation to the January 30th meeting. 2. List this meeting in the same newsletter on the calendar on page 1. 3. Take information about the community and invitations to the January 30th meeting to the annual meeting and holiday dinner of a local natural foods coop. 4. Include news of the meeting in the Update to those interested in the community from out of state. 5. Print 25 posters: include some with the Triangle Macrobiotic Association, Inc. newsletter mailing to selected individuals and organizations with "Please Post." Post remaining posters at strategic local locations. 6. Send press releases to local media in late December. 7. Members send post cards regarding the meeting, personally written and signed, to those who have expressed interest in the community. 8. Post signs at weekly macrobiotic dinners. 9. Use word of mouth: all housing community members promote the January event at weekly macrobiotic dinners and elsewhere. 10. Invite people who are organizing other local cohousing groups to the meeting to share information and prospects.
Seventeen people came to our January meeting for local people. The agenda was designed to attract people to our proposed community, but we also invited representatives of three other groups building communities nearby. We found that we can help each other find prospects and not detract from our own efforts because people who come to one group's meeting may be more suited for another community. We showed slides of cohousing communities already built and explained what we'd accomplished to date. Our consultant, Giles Blunden, talked on "Keeping Going" from his experience with the nearby Arcadia community.
Giles, an architect, is project director for Arcadia, a non-macrobiotic cohousing community now building houses just ten miles away, in Carrboro. Since the Arcadia group preceded us by several years, they have blazed a trail for us making realtors, attorneys, architects and other planners, and city and county authorities understand the concepts of cohousing.
In March, the Macrobiotics Today piece and ad appeared, and we have received a steady stream of calls and letters as a result.
Visiting the Commons on the Alameda
In March we visited the Commons on the Alameda, a non-macrobiotic cohousing community being built in Santa Fe where we were warmly greeted and shown around by Lynnwood Brown, one of the founders of the project. Here we saw an organizational and developmental pattern different from that of Winslow or Arcadia. The originators of the concept included a developer who was not only knowledgeable about the process of developing housing projects, but interested enough to purchase land, finance the development, sell the lots, and live in the community himself. It helped us to crystallize our plans to form an investors' group to provide financing of the development of our community.
The Commons on the Alameda consists of individual homes designed in the Southwest Pueblo-style of architecture with a common house facing onto a central plaza. Some of these have home offices built on to their houses. Extending from the plaza, the various homes are clustered in groups of 6 to 8 around smaller placitas. Each placita group was provided a budget with which to plan the landscaping and walkways within the placita. The layout and furnishings of the common house, which included three guest bedrooms, gave us further information for our rapidly growing file of ideas.
Conference for Out-of-state People
The conference in April added important perspectives from new people in attendance who would have to consider moving to North Carolina, with all that entails, in order to join this community. The program was designed to anticipate and to answer many such questions as well as to simulate community in all the activities.
The Program
- Introductions and overview of cohousing concepts/TMHC history. - Description of the Research Triangle Region of North Carolina. - A two-hour tour pointing out schools, universities, the farmers' market, and restaurants, and including visits to a health food store and food coop. - Discussion on joining a cohousing community and another on financing options. And we worked through a case study to show what's involved in working together. - Description of the evolution of the Arcadia community by Giles Blunden and a presentation on "Best Prospects for Land" by a local realtor.
And, of course, the discussions continued over dinner, breakfast, and two lunches, all prepared by local macrobiotic chefs. By the end of the conference we had covered: - Are you suited for community? - What are you seeking in community? - How can we make this happen? - How can members who live at a distance be involved in the planning? - Developing and maintaining community standards. - Sharing activities and responsibilities - shared dinners, care of common property. - What it means to operate by consensus. - What if everyone is not macrobiotic?
In the week following the conference we engaged Louise Barnum of Weaver Street Realty of Carrboro to look for land, and we entered into an agreement for services with the attorney who has steered Arcadia through many of its legal processes. A new bank account has been established, applications have been submitted to the state of North Carolina to form an investment corporation to develop the community, and we began finding investor/members.
Other Spring and Summer Activities
Even at this early stage we are enjoying personal benefits and opportunities from the project. Chuck has revived a long-standing interest in architecture and construction by taking a course in "Designing Your Home" offered by the Duke University Department of Continuing Education and taught by an award-winning architect. Books, clippings, and software are piling up to be shared with other members of the community as the design process for the land and for homes accelerates.
This spring brought visits from others considering joining our community, and another meeting already is planned for summer. We held meetings in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia for other interested people, including some who have already visited and become interested.
We visited a Massachusetts community currently in the building stage, and we are encouraging our other members to visit communities near where they live. It helps to see what others have done. None of these communities is macrobiotic.
This summer some of us will attend the macrobiotic conference in Vermont to meet together again and to tell others about the community. Watch for us in the tee shirts that read, "Ask me about the Macrobiotics Housing Community in North Carolina"!
In all of these activities there is a secondary motivation. That is to provide information and inspiration to other persons who might want to establish similar macrobiotic housing communities in other parts of North America and the world. We hope for an international network to share experiences, exchange visits, and provide anchors to this wonderful, but sometimes elusive, way of life we call macrobiotics.
Summary: Steps to Beginning A Housing Community
1. Find others who are interested. This is ongoing. Involve everyone as much as possible. Practice community. Work and play as you go along. Share with others building communities; the returns are great. 2.Educate yourselves. Read, research, attend classes, hire knowledgeable consultants. 3. Have a vision, set goals and a timeline. 4. Get the word out in as many ways, and as frequently as possible. 5. Stay optimistic. Remember others have built communities. It can be done.
Helpful Publications for Those Beginning A Community
Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves by Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett, Habitat Press/Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California.
Directory of Intentional Communities: A Guide to Cooperative Living, Co-published by Fellowship for Intentional Community, Evansville, Indiana and Communities Publications Cooperative, Rutledge, Missouri.
Periodical: CoHousing, annual subscription is $25; P.O. Box 2584, Berkeley, CA 94702.
End of Article
Author bio-statement: Carol Brown Eilber and Charles Eilber belong to the planning group for the Triangle Macrobiotics Housing Community and serve on the board of Triangle Macrobiotics Association, Inc. Carol edits the Triangle Macrobiotics newsletter.
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