The blog and the newsletter have been quiet since January as the pieces fell into place for us to move in to our new home!
As of mid-February, all BCC members had closed on all 23 units and we had repaid our construction loan. This was a HUGE fiscal milestone. (A BCC friend told us recently that only 5% of cohousing projects ever make it from start to finish. so we're in a select group, indeed.)
Because this has been the Age of COVID, supply shortages, and shipping delays, the construction and landscaping scheduled to be done last fall is still ongoing. The big pieces are in place -- the construction is complete, the elevator, the HVAC systems, city water, and internet all work -- but there are many finishes and details still to be done.
But, in a move that shows a lot of negotiating skills on our and our builder's part and flexibility on the city's part, the city granted conditional Certificates of Occupancy to individual units in batches. This allowed people to move into the building just before their leases and short-term rentals began to expire in late January/early February.
However, this also meant that folks were living in units that either required substantially more attention from our builder or were not q-u-i-t-e finished. The analogy of "flying the plane as you're building it" definitely comes to mind!
As of today, we're still awaiting a final Certificate of Occupancy from the city on our common areas. Until that happens, we cannot use the storage closets on each floor or gather in the common kitchen/dining room. We're hoping those COs arrive soon, but like they say -- we've waited this long...
As of today, only a couple of BCC folks have not moved into their units yet. For those of us who moved in throughout February and early March, we have been busy sorting (and recycling) boxes, bumping into each other at The Container Store, saying "That's our train" when we hear the whistle (we say it at least 10 times a day), and seeing each others' ingenious solutions to storage and decorating problems.
And there have been other sagas as well: getting the post office to deliver mail to this new address, getting the DMV's web site to recognize the new address, the avalanche of cardboard boxes that overwhelmed our recycling service, arranging where to park the cars that overflow the parking podium, and on, and on. This is what "self-developing" means, folks! We own the building, we own the problems, and we own the solutions. The buck stops with us.
We are all relieved and happy that at least THAT phase of our journey is nearly behind us and the next phase has begun.
More details to come. In the meantime -- PICTURES!!!
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