Things to Think About
The following is from my notes made at seminars held at C.E.E.D. to organize intentional communities, which exist today in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area. — Tommy Cichanowski

Personal Desires

• Good solar orientation
• Fire proof
• Easy Maintenance
• Ecologically sound
• Net gain
• Work on community house and building construction
• Physical beauty
• Edible landscape and garden
• Non-toxic construction
• Alternative Energy
• Spiritual space
• Diversity of spaces
• Economic work space
• Professional space and common space
• Day care
• Facilities for older kids
• New ways of generating new places and spaces
• "Tree house" (play spaces)
• Partition of land as land trust
• Group buying
• Space for formal and informal teaching
• Plenty of privacy
• Diversity of age family
• Statement of purpose
• Covenant

Individual Concerns
What we need to know before committing to the project.

• Financing / Down payment
• Form of ownership
• Do I Qualify financially
• Resale procedures
• Coherence / shared values
• Integrate work and home
• Community investment fee
• Adequate common Facilities
• Relation between space and cost
• Consensus of ecological concerns
• Could housing units be rented
• Effects of the community of loan defaulting
• Financial stability
• Decision making process (levels of decision making)
• Governing
• Group process
• Simplicity of vessel
• Conflict resolution
• Membership and de-membership
• Rightness of this site
• Time line
• Do we have resources required to carry through project
• Sweat Equity
• Development costs
• Desired relationship with neighborhood
• Flexibility and frame work of growth and expansion
• Common bonds
• Caring  &  acceptance  of  other  people's  needs,  tendencies & eccentricities
• Accountability

General fears involved in living in a community based housing system:

• Giving up / Emptying
• Starting over
• Buracrocry
• Fear of division
• Losing vision
• So much meeting time
• Time consuming
• Too much noise
• No tranquility
• Group consensus slows processes
• Dogma
• Won't like cooking
• Not enough children of same age
• Balance of privacy and community
• Too homogeneous
• Not enough clarity and skills to build community
• Not professional
• Won't be a simple vessel
• Too many dogs, cats and visitors
• Too Expensive and small
• Not affordable
• Lack of community
• Not enough demand for communal facilities
• How to get in and out
• Diet (Improper diet)
• Losing contact with outside
• Poor relationship between buildings, land, people and nature
• Fear that the housing units will be hard to resell
• Too much sameness
• Excessive processing
• Won't like building site
• Everyone not sharing responsibilities
• Ability to include Coyote

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