Update on Mosaic Commons

Mosaic Commons Cohousing is a group that formed out of discussions among a number of families with children at the Sudbury Valley School in late 1999. We were hoping to build a cohousing community where there would be enough SVS children living as neighbors so that they wouldn’t feel as out of place in their neighborhood as they sometimes do when they live far away from other SVS households. But apart from that, we were most attracted to the other aspects of cohousing: the image of an old-fashioned neighborhood where everyone has their private home but there are many opportunities for neighborly socializing, where the kids play freely with each other without the need for adult supervision and protection, where cars do not interfere with the life of the people.

As it turned out, it was exceedingly difficult to find an appropriate site for our neighborhood in the western suburbs, close enough to SVS for a reasonable commute. The zoning laws of the towns out here are designed for large houses on large plots and generally do not allow the kind of clustered neighborhood we were planning to build. We went through many possible sites, several times we thought we had found the right spot, only to be thwarted by technical problems with the site or NIMBY opposition from abutters. In the mean time, our group evolved to include families with other educational philosophies, singles, and older couples whose kids had flown the coop.

Two years ago, we were approached by another cohousing group, Camelot Cohousing, who in turn had been approached by the conservation agency The Sudbury Valley Trustees, who in turn had been approached by the Selectmen of the Town of Berlin, MA. There was a large parcel that used be a tree nursery that was coming up for sale. The town had the right of first refusal on the parcel and did not want a typical subdivision that would turn all that very attractive land into asphalt driveways and large houses. The Sudbury Valley Trustees convinced the selectmen that cohousing was a great solution. As part of the arrangement, the project would fall under the state’s 40B housing law, which would ensure that 25% of the units built would be “affordable” under state guidelines. The selectmen agreed to the plan. Camelot and Mosaic Commons would jointly develop the land, building two separate 34 unit cohousing neighborhoods, and preserving most of the parcel as conservation land.

But before the project could go forward, we would have to get a comprehensive permit from the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals. That process turned out to be much more adversarial and contentious than we had been led to expect. Abutters fiercely argued against our project and the board itself was very skeptical about the merits of our project (and frankly, of our “strange” lifestyle). After two years, however, in what for us is still a stunning turn of events, the ZBA granted us our comprehensive permit this past January and the appeals period just ran out without any appeals having been filed.

So, we are ready to finalize our designs, break ground this summer, and move in to our new homes in the fall of 2008.