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Middlesex Senior Cohousing -- Building the first senior cohousing community in New England!
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Greetings!
November, and what a month it's been for our project! This week, when we sit down at the Thanksgiving table, we'll have a lot to give thanks for.
Why? Because we're almost at the end of our "due diligence" period on the property in Littleton. (To track our progress, check out earlier issues of the newsletter archived on our website). And we had a hugely productive and fun two-day workshop, brainstorming site layouts with our fabulous design team. (The lunches from Debra's Natural Gourmet in Concord were also fab). And the icing on the cake? A bunch of new households came onboard.
Here's a glimpse of the November newsletter -- for details, read on.
- Save the Dates! January 11 (Sat) Info Session, Reuben Hoar Public Library, Littleton; January 18 (Sat) "Co-ops of Metro West " joint info session with Assabet Village Food Co-op at Maynard Public Library
- Project Update: Site design workshop, new households onboarded
- Senior Cohousing in the News -- "UU Seniors Are Finding New Ways to Age in Place" (UU World magazine)
Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving from us to you!
Victoria & Mayhew
Co-founders
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J
ust to Recap...
In early September we got land under contract in Littleton, Mass. The 90-day "due diligence" period is nearly over. And if all goes well in our upcoming meetings with the Town, we'll soon begin the 6 - 12 month "permitting" period.
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Site Design Workshop: Getting Down with our Design Team
Nineteen of us spent a fun, intense, and productive weekend this month holed up with our stellar design team, brainstorming site layouts for the Littleton property. (Having a developer who owns an unused office space has advantages).
On Saturday, our architects, Laura and Sheldon, and our civil engineer, Bruce, gave us a crash course on the glories and constraints of the site.
On Sunday it was kindergarten for grown-ups--there were work tables, piles of tracing paper, gobs of colored pens, lots of little wooden blocks and squares of colored paper to represent buildings, and a scale topographical model of the site. We split into teams with the assignment for each team to come up with at least three site plans -- in 30 minutes. We grappled with how to fit home units, a common house, parking spaces, and other needs onto a three-acre, sloped site while still preserving an historic house and other structures.
Long story short, the professionals synthesized our designs into fewer and fewer options, we gave feedback, and finally, last Thursday, the whole community came together to weigh in on the two finalist designs, and we consented to a single site design.
Collaborative design workshops like this are unique to cohousing projects. The key to their success lies in expert facilitation by a cohousing architect who's not only skilled in cohousing design but also facilitation and group process. Thank you Laura!
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Six New Households On Board!
Another reason for giving thanks this month....
Six new households became Explorers (our three-month trial membership level).
And two other households stepped up to become full Equity members. Why is this cause for celebration? Because the more Equity households, the more our development costs get spread out and shared, lessening the financial burden for us all.
So, November finds us with:
- 27 participants
- 10 Equity member households
- 8 Explorer households
- 1000 names on our mailing list (This is astonishing given that we have never paid for advertising. Good news gets around.)
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Senior Cohousing in the News
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"In cohousing communities, UU seniors are finding new ways to ‘age in place’"
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This article from
UU World
magazine is aimed at Unitarian Universalists, but it's great reading for anyone interested in an overview of senior cohousing in the US since its arrival from Denmark in 2005. The first such neighborhood in the US, Glacier Circle, was in fact launched by a few people who were longtime friends via their UU church in Davis, California.
As a graying population confronts the limited options for senior housing, seeking ways to maintain independence without the isolation that can accompany so-called aging in place, various grassroots alternatives are gaining footholds.
Shared housing, cohousing and village organizations appeal to those hoping to avoid the high costs and institutional nature of assisted-living and nursing homes, or at least stave them off for as long as possible.
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Scrapbook from the Site Design Workshop
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About Middlesex Senior Cohousing
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We are 18 households (27 people) from 14 towns in Metro Northwest Boston who are aiming to build the first senior cohousing neighborhood in New England.
Our mission is to build a collaboratively designed, self-managed neighborhood of 20 or so privately-owned, small, clustered, energy-efficient homes. With abundant open space, gardens, and a large outdoor commons. Also a large common house with extensive amenities, including guest suites, gourmet kitchen, and great room for community meals, events and celebrations. Other amenities may include spaces for woodworking, arts/crafts, home offices, and yoga/exercise.
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