TAYLOR Becky G <br />From: majrafferty@gmail.com on behalf of Maj Hutchinson <majhutchinson@gmail.com> <br />Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 11:24 PM <br />To: TAYLOR Becky G <br />Subject: Opposition to OMC development <br />Attachments: OMC Unit Scenario numbers.pdf <br />Follow Up Flag: Follow up <br />Flag Status: Completed <br />Dear Ms. Taylor <br />I am a resident living,on Oakleigh Lane who is very concerned about the excessively large Oakleigh <br />Meadow Co-housing (OMC) development proposed at the end of our quiet, dead end'street. We have <br />entered into mediation with OMC to work toward a compromise of decreasing the size of the project <br />(currently 29 units). <br />They have inf ormed the neighbors that they are unwilling to reconsider the size and in recent talks cited <br />two reasons for having such an oversized project: 1) the need for enough functioning adults to make the <br />community run and 2) the need to spread the cost of the shared expenses among more members (such as <br />the common house). <br />OMC has told the neighbors that they needed to have a large enough community to have "SO functional <br />adults:" They said they have been advised that they need to have this large scale size in order to have a <br />successful, functioning co-housing community. I researched existing co-housing projects on 2 and 3 acre <br />lots in the U.S. You can view this information at http:/Jwww.cohousing.org.~directo1y. view/6179. <br />Listed on the site, there are twenty-one existing 2-3 acre co-housing sites (ranging in the number of units <br />from 8-41). The average number of units 23. OMC is saying that they need 6 units above the <br />average. What's more, 6 out of 21(29%) of these 2 and 3 acres projects are 15 units or fewer. These <br />numbers point to the fact that there is no "magic number" needed, that OMC is asking for more than even <br />the average co-housing group on land of their size. Further, that nearly a third of the. co-housing projects <br />are significantly smaller (15 units or less). <br />On the website of many of the larger sites (above 20 units), the setting is described as "urban." The OMC <br />website describes their setting as "suburban (mixed, feels rural, on the river)." It f eels "rural" because it's <br />undeveloped green way, because there is nothing developed in that area all around it - for a reason. <br />The other argument that OMC has forwarded is that they need to increase the-number of units to spread <br />out the cost per family. They say that they are building modest units. However, even with these <br />'speculative numbers, they are more expensive than the houses in the neighborhood around them. They <br />also finance a 4,000 square foot common house. One easy wayto reduce the costs (and therefore, the <br />number of units) is to significantly downscale the common house. There is a site in Portland under <br />1142 <br />