At our latest meeting the Crediton Co-housing group welcomed
newcomers from Exeter and Dawlish, and our co-ordinater Paula
Kovacs declared she was stepping down due to other pressures. As we
are on the lookout for land for our project, we heard about the
setting up of the Sandford Affordable Housing Working Group with
interest. We need to talk to them and to various housing
associations and keep in touch with the community land trust.
We agreed that building on the flood plain at Pedlers Pool was
madness. As one of our aims is to be within walking distance of
shops and public transport, a brown field site might be more
appropriate.
We discussed green modes of building such as cob, hemry and
post-building, and the desirability of building flexible dwellings
that could cater for the halt and lame - partly so that we could
have such people, and partly that we may be such people. Then we
talked about how some schemes have management and neighbours'
meetings separately.
At this point Charles Mossman arrived. He is rightly concerned
that although we have "envisioned" our ideal co-housing scheme, and
discussed the need to identify some land and grants for further
research etc, we had not really got around to "actions" - talking
money and commitment...... He might do a half day with us
running through SMART goals. Meanwhile we should write down our
"critical path", working backwards from our happy moving in,
through building it, acquiring the space, money, finding money,
resource plan and research.