Cohousing Association of Central Texas - Umbrella Services (CACTUS)
May 28, 2002
Minutes for Meeting #9
Attending: Selwyn Polit, Beth Gleason, Tom West, Dory Grace, Eileen Nehme, Rene Renterria
Updates:
Oak Hill:
Very excited about locating land. No ‘show stoppers’ in sight. Now they just need people Looking at 69acres. Principle challenge is putting together financing. Current owner will finance. They still need to negotiate price and terms. Working with Neal Morton, architect who has designed cohousing community.
Central Austin:
Report from Becky by Selwyn. They are bringing in Kelly Scott-Hansen for a workshop. Hoping at least part of the workshop can be open other groups. They want workshop to be very specific to their project. Dates are June 14 and 15. Working on cost per unit, estimated at $140K-$160K per unit. Still looking for critical membership mass. After workshop they hope to have enough information to complete land search.
Austin Rural Coho:
Has a web site: http://www.austinruralcoho.com. Have met with Plinny Fisk – of Maximum Potential Building Center. He saw Jones rd. land. Once land is finalized, he is willing to assign students to do studies on land. Still looking for land. Visited land at Beaver road near Elgin - looked promising but has been temporarily removed from market for reasons unknown. Looking for critical mass and/or participants in early debt.
North Austin Rural Coho:
No rep present.
Hilltop:
No rep present.
Responses to Newspaper article:
Varied responses – Cat got about 6, Rural got 2.
Next public event:
Sunday June 30, 2-4:30 open house event – Book people (Dory will co-ordinate with book people)
Flyer – Eileen
AustinProgressiveCalendar.com – Selwyn will post event there
Email announcements to usual folks - Selwyn
Press release – Tom West
Distribute flyer – Selwyn will give them to rollerblade folks.
Signs for stores - Dory
Search engine, add cactus web site - Selwyn
Snacks – Dory
Need long term plan
Search web locations for web links/reference - Beth Gleason.
Beth will work with cactus on marketing plan.
Beth & Dory to explore further marketing possibilities.
We want to do a central Texas conference. Maxpot is willing to be the fiscal agent (non-profit). Postponed from Spring 2003 to Fall 2003.
We can’t apply to Meadows for funding.
Green building conference November 2002 – we might want to have a presence – Tom will check this out further.
Sustainable building Association will be showing off a Rammed earth project Saturday June 1 at 10am. Check out www.greenbuilder.com/sbc/events
NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, June 25 at Tom & Dory. For directions go to CACTUS