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Cafe 1 with John Abrams
February, 2007
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John Abrams |
John Abrams is co-founder and CEO of South Mountain Company (SMC), a thirty year old employee-owned design and building company on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. SMC builds only on Martha's Vineyard and is committed to sustaining and restoring the island’s community, economy and ecology. Approximately one-third of SMC's business is affordable housing that, by SMC standards, can look no different than market rate housing. John is also past chair of the Island Affordable Housing Fund (IAHF) and serves on the board of IAHF and the Island Housing Trust, two not-for-profits dedicated to solving the community’s affordable housing crisis. Some of the practices John has to offer us include:
Integrated community planning where land use is considered an equal element alongside the island’s ecology, character and local economy. John is on the Island Plan steering committee, and New Commons is designing and facilitating the planning process. The Island has a 3% population growth and is dependent on two major economies - tourism and construction. These economies are generally good for the Island, and islanders are beginning to realize population growth and the two largest economies aren’t sustainable.
Social change requires tenacity and creative financing. John’s company designed and built a 16 unit co-housing development and neighborhood, with four units deeded affordable and three more internally controlled as affordable by the co-housing membership. This development did not comply with the zoning in place at the time (in 10 different ways!); this hurdle, and others, had to be overcome.
Build on the fact that the ‘land matters’. The company applies Christopher Alexander's practice of "unfolding" by taking all cues from the land. Island Co-housing, for example, was nestled into the existing trees, which were carefully mapped and protected, rather than clearing the site and re-planting later.
Building a company for the long haul. This means operating a business with a social purpose and balancing community needs with profit making. SMC has a consensus-based management system, has employee ownership, and screens and hires workers as ‘future owners’.
Creative and practical housing solutions. For example, when a house is scheduled to be demolished for development, SMC often negotiates with the owner to agree on a value of the house at market rate, without the land. The owner then writes the Island Affordable Housing Fund a check for that amount, the owner takes a tax deduction and SMC moves the house to vacant land where it becomes an affordable unit. This has happened many times.
Green Building Practices. SMC is a long-time leader in green building and the use of renewable energy in its projects.
John’s book “The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community and Place” presents 8 building blocks: Cultivating workplace democracy, Challenging the gospel of growth, Balancing multiple bottom lines, Committing to the business of place, Celebrating the spirit of craft, Advancing "people conservation," Practicing community entrepreneurialism, Thinking like cathedral builders.
John has two children and three grand children, and he lives with his wife Chris in the co-housing neighborhood that was designed and built by SMC in West Tisbury on the Island of Martha's Vineyard.
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Cafe Photo Minutes
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