Co-housing project may break ground soon

By Al Edwards

American Journal,  September 18, 2008

         A cooperative housing development that drew the ire of Buxton residents during Planning Board meetings in recent months could break ground in October.

         Greensward Hamlet, a so-called co-housing community, would be an environmentally friendly development using geothermal, solar and wind energy.  Residents would live in a tight knit group, share meals in a common house and grow some of their food together, said the project’s creator, Françoise Paradis of Saco.

         “I am still trying to get financing secured, and I am still waiting for final Department of Environment Protection approval,” Paradis said.  “That should all be finalized within the next few weeks.

         Paradis said the project, to be built on 30-acres of land that she already owns, will take about three years to be completed.  She expects the first two buildings, which will house a total of eight condos, to be done by the spring.  The project will also have a common house for residents to gather, which Paradis said she hopes will be completed in the second stage.

         She plans a total of five buildings with four condos in each.  The condos will range from one, two, three and three bedrooms with an in-law apartment.  The development will be located at the end of Marshall Lane, a dirt road off Route 117.  Prices will range from $225,000 for a one bedroom to $415,000 for a three bedroom with an in-law apartment.  Paradis has committed herself to a three-bedroom with the in-law apartment, she said.

         “I think it’s a little expensive but, it’s a lifestyle and not just a home.”  Paradis said.  “In the common house, we’ll have a meditation room, a game room, a playroom for children, and a large dining room with a kitchen.”

         She has five other commitments for condos, but she cannot close deals until she receives financing, she said.  She also has received 30 inquiries from people interested in moving to the community.  Most of these people are 50 or older, she said.

         While Paradis considers Greensward Hamlet to be a responsible environmental initiative, she did face town opposition while trying to get Planning Board approval.

         Paradis’ opponents went as far as accusing her of deceiving the Buxton Planning Board, reasoning that the cost of fossil-fuel free development, as Paradis proposed, was too expensive to ever become a reality.  Despite residents’ concerns about the impact of a large development on well water, traffic or simply the long-standing way of life in Buxton, the Planning Board voted to approve the project in late June, saying that the project was meeting the requirements to go forward.

         Because of the new residents and increased traffic, the town required that Marshall Lane would have to be built up and paved.

         “I think it’s an exciting project,” Jerry Ross, Buxton Planning Board vice chairman, said Tuesday.  “As long as the applicant meets all of the town’s requirements for the project, there really isn’t a lot of leeway in not voting to approve it.”

         Paradis said most of the residents who voiced concern now seem to be on board.

         Paulette Langevin, who operates Angels Retreat Assisted Living from her home on 50 Marshall Lane, said her concerns have been addressed.  She previously was afraid that paving the road and increased traffic would mean the elderly residents would no longer be able to walk down the road.  Langevin bought the home from Paradis, who used to operate her psychology practice there.

         “The road is no longer going to go across from us,” Langevin said.  “They are also putting up trees as blockers so the view will still remain private.  Hopefully, everything will go fine and it will still keep its privacy here.”

         Maine has one co-housing community, Two Echo in Brunswick, which was formed in 1991 and began occupancy in 1998.  Another co-housing project is being planned in Belfast.

Based in Westbrook, Reporter-American Journal Al Edwards can be reached at 207-854-2577 or by e-mail at aedwards@keepmecurrent.com

Condo plan gives owners chance to build community

Greensward Hamlet in Buxton is being envisioned as an energy-efficient alternative to traditional suburban design.

By TUX TURKEL, Staff Writer August 29, 2008

Portland Press Herald

     A psychologist with a dream of building a community focused on harmonious living, diversity and energy efficiency plans to break ground next month in Buxton for the first co-housing project to be  built in Maine in a decade.

If Greensward Hamlet proceeds as envisioned, five clusters of four condominiums each will be set around a courtyard and a so-called common house, where meals can be shared and residents can work or socialize.

The 30-acre development would meet strict standards for sustainability and favor renewable energy sources.

First created in Denmark, co-housing is a collaborative form of living in which residents help design and operate their own small neighborhoods.

Maine has one co-housing community, Two Echo in Brunswick, which was formed in 1991 and began occupancy in 1998. Another is planned for Belfast and a few more are under discussion, as more people look for alternatives to traditional American suburban design.

Supporters say demand for co-housing communities is growing, driven in part by rising energy costs and a desire for less wasteful land use.

But many co-housing ventures fail to materialize. Most rely heavily on members to buy the land, and design and finance the community, a process that can take years.

Greensward Hamlet is unusual in that the developer, Francoise Paradis of Saco, already owned the land.

She is paying for the design and permitting costs and is taking out a construction loan on the $5 million project.

"I think we need to move quickly," she said. "I don't think we can wait."

Whether Paradis can stay on schedule will depend, in part, on how the slow housing market affects potential buyers, some of whom may have trouble selling their current homes.

Paradis said she has purchase-and-sale agreements from two buyers. She also plans to live in the community.

Paradis has permits from the town and is awaiting state site plan approval. Her goal is to break ground by late September and build this fall for spring occupancy.

Paradis expects to build in two phases, starting with eight units. Prices are still to be finalized, but would range from roughly $225,000 for one-bedroom condominiums to $425,000 for three bedrooms and a small in-law apartment.

The homes would be heavily insulated and oriented to take advantage of the sun.

Solar panels would warm water, and heat pumps that tap ground water would warm radiant floors.

The use of renewable and recycled materials, along with other conservation measures, would give the project a high Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ranking by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Other features would include a pond, an organic community garden and trails for walking and cross-county skiing. Tobacco use would be banned in common spaces.

On the project's Web site, Paradis characterizes Buxton as a rural town on the Saco River with rolling hills and farmland that is a "new and upcoming bedroom community for Portland and Saco."

Greensward Hamlet has so far been attracting mostly people at least 50 years old, not the families with young children that favor some co-housing projects.

Robert Morrison is an early retiree with a long interest in co-housing.

Now single and living in an apartment in Dover, N.H., he put down money on a one-bedroom unit. He has attended a handful of meetings and focus groups with Paradis and potential buyers.

Morrison said he likes the idea of living in an energy-efficient community where he knows everyone, and where he can socialize with like-minded residents.

Although it's a fast-growing town, Buxton remains a place where many residents want to retain the feel of country living on large lots. So Greensward Hamlet hasn't been embraced by some neighbors of the site, which is off a gravel, dead-end road.

At a Planning Board hearing in June, some residents voiced common complaints about new development – traffic, noise and lack of traditional access to woodland they enjoyed, but didn't own.

One of them, Pat Langevin, remains concerned about paving and widening the road, and the traffic that would follow. Langevin runs an assisted-living home on the road and values the peace and quiet. But Paradis appears to be making efforts to comply with town standards, he said, and to appease neighbors.

"I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt," he said. "It's a small world. We'll all just try to get along."

Because Greensward Hamlet would preserve most of its land as open space, the development would have less impact than a conventional, large-lot subdivision, in the view of Jeremiah Ross, vice chairman of the Buxton Planning Board. Some neighbors may not want to see anything built on the land, he said, but the project complies with all town ordinances.

"I think it's going to be an exciting project," Ross said. "I'm glad it's happening in town."

If the project is successful, it may serve as a model for other developments in southern Maine, according to Phil Kaplan, co-owner of Kaplan Thompson Architects of Portland.

Kaplan, who is working on Greensward Hamlet, said more home buyers are interested in sustainable communities.

"I think Francoise is setting the stage for what we'll see more of in the future," he said.

Staff Writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or attturkel@pressherald.com

Copyright © 2008 Blethen Maine Newspapers

Buxton struggles with co-housing project

By Gordon Lane 
Reporter-American Journal

BUXTON (June 19, 2008): Last summer, while on retreat in southern France, Francoise Paradis decided that all the reading she had been doing about cooperative housing communities needed to become a reality for her. So, she began to design Greensward Hamlet, a so-called co-housing community, which would be an environmentally friendly development using geothermal, solar and wind energy, where people would live in a tight-knit group, share meals in a common house and grow some of their food together.

Paradis' project, which would include unpaved roads and walking trails on nearly 30 acres at the end of Marshall Lane, faced opposition from neighbors when it went before the Planning Board last week.

“What are we giving away in Buxton?” Mel Howards asked the Planning Board during a public hearing June 9 on the project. Howards questioned Paradis' stated concern for building a community, while at the same time developing land in Buxton and stepping on the toes of the community that already lives there.

Paradis' opponents have gone as far as accusing her of deceiving the Buxton Planning Board, reasoning that the cost of a fossil-fuel-free development as Paradis proposed is too expensive to ever become a reality. Despite residents with concerns about the impact of a large development on well water, traffic, or simply the long-standing way of life in Buxton, the Planning Board has so far voted that the project is meeting the general requirements to go forward.

“I was a little surprised,” Paradis said, about the strength of opposition to her project voiced at the Planning Board meeting.

Paradis, who lives in Saco, is proposing to build five buildings with four condos in each, with a couple of attached, “in-law” apartments. And, perhaps most important for the style of the development, she also proposes a common house, where neighbors will be able to engage in community meals, meetings and activities.

The co-housing community is, according to Paradis, a decades-old living style developed first in Denmark. Many co-housing projects develop around a theme. Paradis' project — Greensward Hamlet — is focusing on sustainable living and a return to nature. The design includes harnessing energy from geothermal systems, solar panels and a small wind turbine called a Windspire. The geothermal design should keep any of the condo owners from having a heating bill.

Paradis hopes to be connected to “the grid” for electrical power, but expects that enough natural energy would be generated to power the development.

Paradis is working to get the entire project LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Development) certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.

There is one other co-housing community development in Maine, Two Echo Cohousing Community in Brunswick. Two other projects, one in Edgecomb and one in Gouldsboro, are also forming. There are some 900 projects across the country, but Paradis said only 113 are actually established.

At the Two Echo community in Brunswick, no cars are allowed up to where the houses wind around dirt paths. Gardens, trees, benches, picnic tables, and freshly chopped wood line the walkway.

With the sustainable approach to the project, Greensward Hamlet would likely attract people who are committed to gardening and cooking together, sharing community duties and being attuned to environmental issues. Smoking would be banned, alcohol discouraged, and carpooling and bicycling encouraged. The public would have access to some 18 acres of land webbed with hiking trails.

Despite all the planned outreach and environmental goals, residents are concerned about the effect the development would have on those who live on the small dirt road where it would be located.

Because of the new residents and increased traffic, the town would require that Marshall Lane would have to be built up and paved. Lucy Gorham said at the meeting she feared she wouldn't be able to access the land she owns on both sides of the road unless culverts were installed at Paradis' expense. But it was pointed out that even then, the only town requirement is that two access points be installed on each side of the road.

Pat and Paulette Langevin operate Angels Retreat Assisted Living from their home at 50 Marshall Lane. They said are afraid the paving of the road and increased traffic would mean their elderly residents would no longer be able to walk down the road. They bought the home from Paradis, who used to operate her psychological services practice there.

"When we bought it, we bought it for the privacy," said Paulette Langevin.

Next to the Langevins is Joyce Lurvey, who said she never had a problem with Paradis in the five years Paradis lived next to her, but she didn't like the project when it was first proposed. She's still concerned about the traffic impact of 20 condos, and about water levels. She also asked how much one of the new condos was going to cost. Paradis did not have concrete numbers, but said a one-bedroom unit might be around $200,000.

However, for Howards, a neighbor though not an abutter, “the whole thing is a disaster.” Despite the character of the development, it's still a development of previously undeveloped land, he said.

Paradis sees the access she is offering to the trails and the sustainable nature of her project as being good things for both communities – the one she's creating and neighbors.

Residents also said they were concerned that Paradis clear-cut her property in 2005. Paradis responded that she regrets the clear-cutting and that it had been her intent to remove only old growth to let new growth flourish. She said the loggers "massacred" the property.

The Planning Board was not in agreement last week on whether the project meets the basic requirements for site plan approval. Voting on the individual standards at their meeting last week, one member, David Anderson, thought the project could adversely affect property values. Because only four of the seven board members were at the meeting - two were absent and James Logan recused himself due to conflict of interest- if just one other member had voted as Anderson did, the whole project would have failed.

Board members also disagreed over whether there was adequate fire protection, which also almost caused the project to be rejected.

But the Planning Board, after over an hour of discussion, gave Paradis approval for the project on the conditions that Paradis creates a back-up water supply for fire crews and installs culverts so Lucy Gorham can access her property. Paradis also has to get approval by the Department of Environmental Protection, which held a public hearing on Tuesday. Paradis said that application should come through within the next two months.

Brunswick residents raised concerns similar to the citizens in Buxton when Two Echo was forming, according to Doug Benner. He can see Two Echo across his back yard, which slopes down and then backs up to where 26 homes are built, tightly knit around the common house. “Initially, I was quite opposed,” Benner said. “It was undeveloped farmland. But realistically, we could have had houses every two acres.” “As far as development goes, I think it's pretty darn good,” he said, noting that he would have preferred no development.

“Everything they do that might affect us, or impose on us, they keep us advised,” he said. “It's a great place for kids.”

As for the worst of it, “there's some traffic, but it hasn't been horrendous.”

Paradis is hoping to start moving people into the new development by next spring. She said she has five commitments from individuals to buy condos already, and another five are strongly interested. She expects all the units would bought within two years.

A Closer Look

Co-housing communities are essentially sub-developments designed to engage its residents in shared activities. Whether the development consists of detached homes or condominiums, the living spaces are built around a common house, where residents join together for meals, have community meetings and make decisions together on what should happen in the community. Community vegetable gardens are often a central piece of the development plan.

For more information, visit the Cohousing Association of the United States' Web site at www.cohousing.org.

For more information on Francoise Paradis' Buxton project, see www.greenswardhamlet.com.

Based in Westbrook, Reporter-American Journal Gordon Lane can be reached at 207-854-2577 or by e-mail at glane@keepmecurrent.com.