City of Rochester
Dept of Neighborhood and Business Development
Bureau of Planning and Zoning
Room 125-B
City Hall
30 Church Street
Rochester NY 14614

Marguerite Parrino/Planning and Zoning Commission:

We the members and residents of Ant Hill Cooperative support and welcome the Gandhi Institute into the Plymouth-Exchange neighborhood, pending approval of the special permit for its future home at 929 South Plymouth Avenue.

We are excited for the opportunities that the Institute’s presence will bring to the neighborhood and complement the already existing community-building that is taking place. Their resources on creating sustainable, nonviolent communities, from restorative justice to the development of a community permaculture garden, have the potential to transform Plymouth-Exchange, as well as the entire City of Rochester.

On behalf of Ant Hill and it’s members,

Brent Arnold
Joe DiFiore
Matt Herrington
John Lam
Drew Langdon
Mary Lupien
Kat Mandel
Kelly McNulty
Chris Olin
Lore Tarnas-Raskin
Tao Xu
Gary Young
Greg Young

With my future in the Peace Corps now cancelled (apparently going to a 3rd world country where access to medical care is limited while pregnant is a liability)… I was living with my parents trying to absorb everything that had happened and imagine a new future for me and now my impending bundle of joy.

I had read a book called The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, by Shane Claiborne which details the life of the author who lives in an intentional community in on of the worst neighborhoods in Philadelphia.  Through this book, I learned to really love the idea of intentional community and realize how necessary it is in this world of ours.  Sharing resources, and building community… yea that sounds more like it.

Living at home wasn’t terrible, but it was isolating and something about being pumped full of extra hormones and being under the same roof as my parents was reminiscent of being a drama filled teenager.  After a particularly nasty fight with my dad that was mostly hormones but was clearly not instigated by me, DAD, I decided to take another look at Ant Hill.

I sent in my application which has questions on it like “If you could have any super power, what would it be?” but really didn’t expect them to want to eventually live with a screaming baby in the house.  They invited me over for a Thursday potluck which happened to be in celebration for Chinese New Year.  The house was PACKED.  It was such an exciting atmosphere with lots of diversity and I knew that this was what I was missing.  After dinner we talked about what it would be like living at the coop and what the possible affects my baby would have on them and vise versa.  I left that night thinking “Hey… this might actually happen”.

I heard a week or two later that they had accepted me and provided me with a few options of how to provide a quiet, smaller atmosphere for me.  I decided on living at the main house until I gave birth, then moving to the bakery (2 houses down) after that.  I moved in soon after and that now seems like ancient history.

Being at Ant Hill is exactly where I needed to be.  I suffered a lot through my pregnancy and the energy of this place kept me sane.  One particularly bad night, I left my room really upset and found everyone in the living room with the lights off, candles lit… chanting OHM. There are frequent spontaneous sing-alongs, back-rubs and cuddling.  What a wonderful environment for an expectant single mom!  Part 2 is to come about how it’s been raising my daughter at Ant Hill. Stay tuned!

As part of my duties as Ex-Co, I’m making it a priority to get involved with the local neighborhood association.  Our co-op community is great, but I think could can be even better if we interacted with those outside of our houses more often.  Our houses are located in the Plymouth-Exchange, or PLEX, neighborhood of Rochester, which has some funky boundaries but basically runs along the southwest riverfront of the Genesee between the more commonly-known Corn Hill and 19th Ward.

So what are my plans?  Well, first off I went to the first association meeting of the year this past Tuesday.  The meeting was held at Carlson Commons, which looks like a pretty cool space for gatherings.   Beginning with a prayer threw me off a bit, as I’m not used to that outside of my spiritual community, but it does help me understand the community around us.  We heard a report about a work day that pulled over 400 tires from the land down by the river trail.  Nobody is quite sure what to do with them, but they made sure to let the City know what a mess it was down there.  Maybe they’ll force some clean-up by the property owners down there.

One of our landlords, David, taking a break.

This is the area of the former Genesee Valley Canal, and at one time was home to the Vacuum Oil Company, and as a result is also a brownfield.  I’m not sure I really want to know what’s in the soil down there.  Good news, though.  The City and the State have begun the process of brownfield clean-up!  They’re in the very beginning stages of planning, so it was mentioned at the meeting that there would be Neighborhood Forums to get the input of the community into the process.  What method of clean-up?  They could replace the soil by digging and shipping.  They could use more natural processes of bio-remediation and cattails.   And then what happens to the land afterward?  Do we want parkland? an urban farm? a commercial development?  All I know at this point is that they better pay attention to the PLEX neighbors.  There is also the conversion of a railroad bridge into a pedestrian one going on at the moment, which will link the neighborhood to the University of Rochester.  Which means that the University is going to have a huge say into what goes on over here.  So definitely something to watch out for on this front.

Also, in the workings, I’ve got a block picnic in the works for June 5th.  Either in our backyard or in our garden lot, I hope to be able to bring as much of our immediate neighborhood together as I can get.  We need to start building relationships with these people.  I’m looking out the window right now to the house across the street, and I know that I’ve never even spoken to the people that live there.  That’s sad.  Yes, is a problem with the way our wider society is structured.  And I don’t expect us to be good friends with every single person on our street.  But maybe I should at least know their names, and how to get a hold them if I need to.  How can I expect them to look out for me, if I’m not doing the same for them?  How do I work with them to make the neighborhood a better place to live, if I don’t know what that means to them?

Hopefully the meeting and picnic will just be the beginning of our interactions.  I’ve requested that Ant Hill join the Neighborhood Association to lend our support to building community in this part of our beloved City.  We’ve already got a good start on this within our co-op.  Let’s expand on that to all those around us.

Living in the Main House:

	Drew  Because of the recent Green Party campaign for Mayor, Drew has been really busy as of late.  But with elections next week things are sure to calm down for him soon.
Gabby  Working at iTastea down in Corn Hill and going to class at MCC in the mornings and Gabby still seems to want more on her plate.  She recently applied for another waitressing job and got a second interview.  Hopefully it goes well for her!
	Gary  As always, Gary is volunteering at the bike shop, and procrastinating various projects he has taken on.  You can do it Gary!
Lyla  Lyla recently finished her application for the Peace corps.  She doesn’t know many of the details of where or when she might leave, but we are all excited for her.  I’m personally rooting for somewhere in Asia; I like visiting that side of the world.
	Jen  I’m doing fine.  School is kicking my ass, but it looks like I’m going to take a year off next year, which I am excited about.  So many possiblities, I have no idea what I am going to do.
Mary  Mary went to the doctor this past week and he said the baby has turned itself around into the birthing position.  Looks like the little one might be coming sooner rather than later! Mary seems excited, and so is the rest of the house. The doctor said two weeks, we’ll keep you posted.
In The House Next Door:
	Charlotte  Just last Thursday Charlotte did something drastic; she asked me to shave her head!  Brent wouldn’t let me have all the fun, so we took turns and gave her the shortest hair cut she has ever had.  She looks great, and its so nice to see her face again.
Kat  Kat is doing well, hanging out with her cats and reading lots of scifi novels.  While retirement is perhaps not exciting enough for her, she makes the best of it.  This is a photo of her when she was 9 hanging out in the pool.  Don’t try and take that ball from her, she’s got a gun!
	Nick  Nick just moved in and he seems to be settling in fine. He is working hard on finishing his masters in sustainable engineering this semester.  He takes a lot of evening classes so I haven’t seen him alot, but such is the life of a student.
In The Purple House:
Alex  Alex is getting into trouble as always.  In his own words, he is “figuring out more ways to subvert authority, painting, and spreading chaos…”  Also, he is the driving force in planning our big Masquerade party on the first of April.
	Alexis  Alexis has been out of town for a little while now.  At least she is somewhere warmer than here, down in Mexico doing more research for her thesis.  But she should be back soon and we are all excited to see her.
Sarah  Sarah just returned from a very good trip presenting her research and meeting with professors about her work.  She got great feedback, and is now hard at work (most of the time) on her thesis.
On Food Share and Living in the Bakery:
	Brent  Brent recently quit his job as a waiter because the marketing business he started is going so well!  Most days you can find him and Luke sitting at the same desk on two computers making things happen for themselves.  If you know someone who needs some marketing help or a new website, he’s the man for the job.
Kurt  Kurt just moved into the bakery, but he’s been around Ant Hill for ages (at least on Ant Hill time scales).  He’s graduating officially from RIT at the end of the semester, and he seems to be making a smooth transition to the “real world” with a programming job that doesn’t care what you wear or when you arrive.  Perfect for Kurt.

So there you go.  A little update on how everyone around the house is doing.  I’d say we are all doing well.  Warm meals every night, a relaxing (and often used) hot tub, what more could anyone want out of life!

-Jen

And it was!  Our new housemate Mary came and brought the first round of her stuff, a prospective housemate, Nick, came over and met everyone, and many of our neighbors and old friends made a point to come by.  Many couchsurfers showed up, perhaps motivated by the meeting about frostburn that happened after things had calmed down a little.  While not many brought chinese food, there was plenty to eat, and even more to drink.  I think it is safe to say everyone had a great time talking and eating together.

So now it is the year of the rabbit.  While I don’t subscribe to ancient chinese superstition, I still think that the year has started off well, and it looks like things are only going to get better, especially around Ant Hill.  For those of you wondering how things are, considering how long our blog has been inactive and perhaps you haven’t been around in a while.  So, an update on Ant Hill from my perspective.

The implementation of a chore fine system that taxes you for chores not completed and dishes left around the house has drastically improved the state of our house, especially the weekend kitchen mess.  The house is overall pretty tidy, relatively speaking, and I think we all feel at home.

Our house is still pretty evenly divided omnivores and vegetarians, but peace has reigned over the land for the last few months.  Recently, through the lost of some beloved housemates, we have shifted the tide yet again.  With our die hard meat eaters retiring to other locations, we have decided to give a meat CSA a try until May.  The meat is more expensive, but it is locally and ethically raised, a big deal to many house members including myself.  The fact of the matter is we just can’t buy as much as we have been eating at the cost of the CSA, so that is why we are giving this a go now, as the silver lining on the always upsetting departure of friends.

We are staying pretty full.  While we have had a lot of moving in and moving out the last few months, we are at the moment full, and while Halina is moving soon, we have a prospective housemate to discuss.  It has been stressful trying to make sure that the logistics work out, but we have been lucky in finding amazing people to move in at just the right times.  I personally am hoping we can have a more stable membership in the near future, but my more temporary housemates are wonderful and I am glad they have found their way to our house.

I am finally feeling completely at home at Ant Hill.  Five short months in the house and I feel I have the hang of it (more or less), which is a good thing considering my ever increasing work load at school.  The longer I am here, the more I learn to love Ant Hill and all of its flaws.  I can’t imagine living outside of a community, and I am happy to say that Ant Hill is becoming every day more of an intentional community as I understand the concept.

-Jen

Jen is a grad student in physics at the U of R.  She has lived at Ant Hill since August 2010, and is currently Inco and Bookkeeper.