MotiveSpace’s Next Neighbors Salon is coming up on Friday June 10th, from 4- 6. For this Salon we’ll be back in Daybreak Cohousing’s Common room, located at 2525 North Killingsworth.  This month we’ll be sharing information with interested MotiveSpace friends and partners about the exciting project we’ve been working on this year – “The Barn: A Portland Raised Building.”

The Barn is a nonprofit support center with an interesting twist: the building is being designed as a strong asset building strategy for its occupants, neighbors, and supportive people throughout Portland. Using MotiveSpace’s Community Asset Funds program, the building will transfer the majority of its ownership to the project’s mission driven occupants and stakeholders over the first 7 – 10 years. Even better, the project will reinvest the revenue it generates above expenses back into its occupants – enabling a large fund earmarked for shared service programs, workshops, trainings, community space, and more.  Please join us next Friday for an informal discussion and information session about where we are, where we’re going, and how the Barn project can support you.

Why the Barn?

• The economic resiliency of many mission-driven organizations is minimal, with workspace usually their second largest budget item after salaries. Lack of affordable space has forced the dislocation on many nonprofits, both in times of economic boom (because of rising commercial rents) and in times of government and private funding cutbacks.
• Commercial banks are becoming increasingly strict in their lending requirements, with few signs of change in the foreseeable future. Lease-to-own programs existing on the market currently range from mediocre to predatory, often requiring renters to pay between 200% – 400% more than they otherwise would, if participants could provide the necessary equity down. In many commercial lease-to-own programs it is common practice for participants to lose all acquired equity immediately, if a single payment is late.
• The philanthropic community has also been hard hit in the last several years, and is seeking creative, upstream approaches to fulfill their missions. The Barn allows mission-driven investors and foundations to support their missions by investing in a low risk, high benefit venture. Rather than providing grants to the project, and fueling the continuous boom-and-bust approach of nonprofit grant cycles, they can assist groups in building resilience, self-reliance, and foresight.

Come discuss more details on this exciting project – the Barn is a large undertaking, and as its name implies, it will take a huge community effort to make it possible! Come find how you can support the Barn, and how the Barn can support you.

To all of this, Terri adds years of experience in property development, business, project management, the food industry, and community building.

Rachel is a wonderful addition to the MotiveSpace Board, and is primarily engaged assisting with strategic planning and concept development for MotiveSpace’s Aging Artfully Cohousing project.

Warm, beautiful and old-fashioned design makes people instantly comfortable in community spaces * Coffee! Warm and inviting refreshments always build a good foundation * Rebuilding Center friends joining the conversation believe that the fact that they move from space to space, offer child-care, use locally and culturally appropriate food, use name tags and go out of their way to welcome people personally contributes to the successful community spaces they create * Offering participants opportunities to ‘self-host,’ create the space and help lead the conversation creates ownership and inclusion * The Daybreak Community Common House is designed so that it’s very easy to see the community’s comings and goings * We talked over the emerging literature in planning that private courtyards within residential projects are often under-used, in part because occupants can sometimes feel like they’re “on display” while using them. Planting courtyards with dense trees and landscaping, as well as including the natural people magnets – fire and water features – are the key ideas we came up with to re-activate courtyard space * Movable benches, chairs, adjustable lights and a general flexible design helps to create comfortable community space * We can never force community space, we can just offer it * The TaborSpace cafe benefits from the high number of grassroots groups and nonprofits renting space in the building * Successful community spaces include ample opportunities for spontaneous meetings- ie, plenty of chairs and tables for sitting and chatting comfortably, scattered in nooks and crannies * Public and semi-private courtyards need to be well designed and should allow for social uses at the perimeters, such as pubs or restaurants with outdoor seating * TaborSpace’s donation based cafe helps users feel a sense of ownership and welcome they couldn’t otherwise acheive

This month we’ll focus on the movement best called Collaborative Consumption. Rachel Botsman, author of the recently published ‘What’s mine is yours: the Rise of Collaborative Consumption,’ describes the phrase as: “the rapid explosion in swapping, sharing, bartering, trading and renting being reinvented in ways relevant to the Facebook age.” How will Collaborative Consumption impact the built environment, and how can designers and planners create projects and spaces that encourage and support this trend?

Read below for thoughts from Alan Rosenblith, a local filmmaker who’ll be joining us again next Friday to film interviews with participants who’d like to share.And be sure to check out the footage from the last Salon.

Collaborative Consumption in the Built Environment
Friday, Nov 5th, 4:00 – 6:00
Olympic Mills Think Tank, Suite 230
107 SE Washington Street, PDX, 97214

Many of you know that MotiveSpace is considering spearheading the development of a large mission-driven support center in Portland. If we move forward on this project, the conversations and interviews next Friday will have special relevance for us. Come share your ideas and experience with us!

We’ll provide good drinks, wine, and refreshments – feel free to bring extra snacks, friends, and to pass along the invitation to your group’s members or staff.  We look forward to seeing you soon!

Alan on Collaborative Consumption
For the past several months I have been working on a documentary exploring the new economy. Part of the new economy is grounded in innovative ways to consume goods and services. Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to catch up with Rachel Botswin for an interview in Seattle.

Consider cars. At any given point, 95% of all existing cars are parked, completely idle. This means that as a society, we may have upwards of twenty times as many cars as we actually need. Now consider a service like Zip Car. Zip Car allows members to share cars so that fewer cars can meet the same transportation needs.

Cars are just one example of collaborative consumption. This movement as a whole allows us to make more efficient use of our resources, and, often in the process, builds community. Some of the questions we’ll be asking at next week’s Salon:

• What ways do you practice collaborative consumption now, or what ways can you imagine it working for you?
• How might tenants in an office building make use of collaborative consumption, to reduce costs, save energy, and build community?
• How might residents in a neighborhood or a multi-family building do the same?

Come to the next MotiveSpace salon to explore this topic.

This month we’ll hold the space for a conversation on decentralized neighborhood planning.Always focusing on solutions, we’ll talk over tools, technologies, and methods which we can we use to identify a neighborhood’s needs, assets, and plans for future changes.

Decentralized Neighborhood Planning
Friday, Oct 1st, 4:00 – 6:00
Olympic Mills Think Tank, Suite 230
107 SE Washington Street, PDX, 97214

MotiveSpace’s goal is to provide resources and support for high-need and neighborhood-supported projects. We need help to understand how to do this responsively, effectively, and in a manner in alignment with our mission. The last several years have shown that traditional market studies don’t always reveal the complexity of a neighborhood, or an accurate level of support for a project concept. Surveys, facilitated conversations, voting, micro-financed funding pools: What other tools and ideas can we think of as a group?

We’ll provide good drinks, wine, and refreshments – feel free to bring extra snacks, friends, and to pass along the invitation to your group’s members or staff.  We look forward to seeing you soon!

Eli Hayworth from Sakura Group, a small scale innovative developer in Northeast. How are Builders roles shifting in the new economy? “Well, the builder’s who’ve survived are really focusing on contracting, and not just focusing on numbers. It seems like they’re more in tune with actual buyers.” Eli just completed a small-scale renovation of a building with a few of his friends. The space was subdivided into condos, and the units were pre-sold: in effect, they were the designers, the buyers and end-users themselves. “It’s a great model,” he said, “If neighbors want to step in and create their own communities and do something for themselves then we have some great developers in this town, people who understand how to take land and turn it into something, something that reflects the way people really want to live.”

Emily Newberry, a communication professional and President of Wizense, Inc, a local group offering workshops in communication strategies and mutual learning.   How Builders Roles are changing in the new economy? “Anytime a system in changing, people are going to have different ideas about how it’s changing- the most important thing is to figure out how to talk about it in effective ways. …Just as it’s important to have good materials, it’s important to have good building processes, it’s important to have smart engineering, it’s just as important to have smart human relationships, and to be conscious of them, and not to wait until they’ve already gotten torn apart to pay attention to them.”

Alan Brickley, MotiveSpace Director, real estate lawyer and Associate counsel at First American Title. How are builders role changing in the new economy? “I don’t think that they have changed yet. Most of the builders I work with professionally are using the same old models, and struggling to find the new ones. I guess the main difference is that most of them are doing what we talked about earlier, speculative development… trying to guess what the market will buy. Today financing requires that projects are pre-sold; other than that though I don’t see a significant difference.” When asked what some of the legal barriers are to people-first development, “Legally, we’ll need a whole new set of documents to describe and work with the process. Some of these are in place now, and being developed. “The ownership interests that residents will have will be a little different than what we’re familiar with now…. MotiveSpace is working on methods of finding out what the community really wants, and then working with builders to find out if it’s something they can do… the first piece though is to find out what the community’s values are, or what they really need.”

Tom Litser, a project manager and planner with OTAK, a Portland based planning and design firm, typically works with on large-scale projects, like water-fronts, transportation systems, and other urban planning efforts.   How are builders role changing in the new economy? “…More builders are trying to find the intended use communities than previously and build for them. …I’m glad to know there’s more of these types of projects going on than I get to work with…. I hope that nothing we do prevents the smaller scale sort of grassroots stuff from occurring, and I look forward to getting even better at connecting with, planning for, and even nurturing [these types of projects] that then we’re doing currently.”

Rachel Mohlere, a senior real estate specialist and eco-broker.   How are builders role changing in the new economy? “I think a lot of what builders will have to do in the future will be adapting housing that we already have, and building accessory dwelling units…. Adapting the whole housing industry to the people who are already here, and finding mechanisms to allow younger people and homeless people to access the housing that’s already vacated…. I haven’t really seen much action yet as far as developers building to what people actually want yet, although of course that’s a difficult financial issue. I think a lot of the creative, conscientious developers (like Eli Spevak) are going to leave the other more speculative developers in the dust. …I really like what I saw here tonight, I felt really inspired by some of the people here tonight who are really looking hard at what we’re going to build now, how are we are actually going to do it and fund it. A really nice mix of ages too, not just all old people and not just all young idealistic people- a really nice grounded group, I was really impressed.”

Stephanie Doughtery, the founder and builder of HARP, the Healing Arts Resource Project. How are Builders Roles changing in the new economy? “I’ve been excited to work with MotiveSpace, to learn how to build something that I need, instead of what we’ve been talking about… I was talking to a person a little while ago who has a building and is in the process of tearing all the walls out, with no real intention behind it, just trying to imagine what a person might eventually use it for. It seemed to me like a pretty absurd waste of energy, and resources. So, the ability to work with someone to create a space that’s just what I need is really exciting, and I feel like the way MotiveSpace goes about it (working with the community and esp the nonprofit sectors) is especially strong.”

Money markets are beginning to loosen up in 2010, and during the past couple of months some Portland builders are returning to work.  The projects moving forward have some interesting characteristics in common. One of themost interesting for MotiveSpace friends is the trend toward people-first, non-speculative development. Many lenders and municipalities are putting non-speculative development clauses in their requirements for support – now more than ever, builders need to know the neighbors, organizations, or tenants they are building for.

How can builders thrive in the new economy, creating stronger projects along the way? How will the shift to people-first development redefine Builders’ Roles, and the way they relate to clients in the future?

Builders’ Roles in the Changing Economy
Friday, Sept 3rd, 4:00 – 6:00
Olympic Mills Think Tank, Suite 230
107 SE Washington Street, PDX, 97214

We’ll share wine, refreshments, stories and ideas- all Salon style, meaning a relaxed and friendly atmosphere full of good ideas, humor and fun.

We had a good scope of member representatives out- community leaders, builders, project captains and activists who ran the gamut between true luddites to saavy and experienced social media connoisseurs. We definitely benefitted from the differences between us, having a lively debate and discussion about the merits and downfalls of different ideas and tools for documenting conversations.

At one point the two camps almost headed down the competitive conversation path. We began to debate the merits between in-person vs. online conversation strategies. Joy Corcoran of the Aging Artfully Initiative helped us come back toether on that point, though, with the elegant statement that ‘All communication is good communication.’

In the end, we realized that future Salons (as well as many other community conversations) probably won’t need very fancy recording tools or tricks. In future discussions we’ll begin experimenting with break-out interviews, inviting attendees into the hallway to share their thoughts on specific points. If the sound quality isn’t good enough to post the audio files directly online, we’ll just transcribe them, and get the text onto the website.

The main point, is that we work together to document the great ideas we’ve heard from Builders and Neighbors this year.

In the coming months we’ll be continuously strengthening theMotiveSpace website, adding new support for forums, groups, member profiles, and community reosurces related to placeMaking. We need good folks dedicated to community development and placeMaking to jump in, and help us make the site as great as it can be!

If you’d like to jump in and help out on this project, get in touch today!