6_5_24 Planning Board Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Approved 7.10.24 from. There are senior housing cooperatives that are really becoming very popular in the upper Midwest and 1574 Minnesota and Wisconsin. There are about 150. It's become an industry, and these are typical high-rise buildings 1575 with 60 to 100 residents, but after a developer creates the building, it's sold to the people who have moved in there, 1576 and they govern it as a cooperative, and it's a democratic structure. It's an operated cost structure, so there's no 1577 pecuniary benefit to the cooperative from their actions, and it seems to work very well up in those states, and that 1578 was our inspiration for trying to do that model here. 1579 1580 Whitney Watson: So who would actually own the dwelling unit? Would the individual or family and therefore 1581 they have the right to sell it to whoever they please? Or does the Co-op own the building? 1582 1583 Edwin Cox: In a full Cooperative model, the Cooperative owns all the buildings, all the units. The person 1584 buying the share in the Cooperative has the right to live there as long as they want and play by the rules and, you 1585 know, are current on their fees. And when they go to sell, though, they are able to sell it to anyone with the provision 1586 that that person first has to become a member of the Cooperative. 1587 1588 Whitney Watson: Okay, so this will be a full Cooperative? 1589 1590 Edwin Cox: We haven't determined that. It's possible that some of the units will be fee simple, and others 1591 might be under Cooperative model, but that's still to be determined. 1592 1593 Whitney Watson: Okay. Other questions I have. Looking at the other businesses in this neighborhood activity 1594 node, they provide services and resources for the broader community. How will Fiddlehead add to the mix and 1595 continue to enhance the existing activity node? And I really note it is kind of a cheap shot, but you talked about 1596 zipping past the entrance to the community in 3 seconds, so clearly, you're not really encouraging the broader 1597 community to come in. 1598 1599 Edwin Cox: I want to make it clear that this is not a commercial activity in the sense of offering any kind of 1600 services to outside people such as having a restaurant where they could come in and eat. There won't be anything 1601 of that type, so no commercial activity that would be part of an activity node. 1602 1603 Whitney Watson: But your narrative also mentions events and having parking for events though. There is an 1604 assumption there that people will be coming to this development from outside the community, and you are reaching 1605 out to a broader community, so to say, well, we're not really providing that for other people is perhaps disingenuous. 1606 1607 Edwin Cox: They would be coming as friends. 1608 1609 Whitney Watson: So there'd be no publicity that anybody would see anywhere else. No social media 1610 publications, no… 1611 1612 Edwin Cox: But it's possible it could be on social media but not advertisements as such. No, it would not 1613 be an event like that. There could be things like house concerts. A lot of people in our group host house concerts. 1614 And they charge a fee to pay the musicians and so something of that type is a possibility, but to have a public dance 1615 where there's an admission charge or something like that, I think that would not be the case. 1616 1617 Whitney Watson: Okay, so back to my question. So what will Fiddlehead do to enhance this activity node given 1618 the other businesses and residences that are in that area already? 1619 1620 Edwin Cox: I don't know that we have really made any determination on that. I can see some possibilities. 1621 We're going to have an energy resiliency strategy where we provide for our residents in terms of power continuity 1622 when the utility power goes out, and I think we can serve as a resource for education in the surrounding community 1623