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ABC News in DC did a short video spot on Catoctin Creek Village out in Loudon County, VA and compared the rural cohousing community to both a 60s commune and a golf community. Not the most flattering or accurate description of community but I guess there is no such thing as bad publicity.
The commune is a flash from the past where people lived together and shared almost everything. "We don't share incomes. We don't share partners. It's just like any other subdivision but with a slight twist," said Oliveau.
The twist is much like a golf community, but without the golf. The concept is known as co-housing.
The concept of co-housing did evolve from the communes of the 70's, but people at Catoctin Creek say they are less like flower children and more like farm family.
Ragland gives the basics of cohousing touching on its appeal to the mainstream and its ecological possibilities:
Part of what makes cohousing attractive is that it specifically attempts to create a model that is close enough to the mainstream. It can be financed by conventional bank financing, and frequently uses production housing to help control costs. It's a part of the broader, intentional communities movement, or can be seen as part of that. But it's close enough to the mainstream that it can actually happen more readily, and that appeals to a large number of Americans.
Your Health Connection has created a series of three videos on cohousing and how it can help enhance people's health. The site generaly focuses on health care and and medical issues but did a special report on cohousing as a healthier lifestyle.
Videos include interviews with folks from Frog Song Cohousing in Cotati, CA and Glacier Circle Cohousing a senior cohousing community in Davis, CA. The first video is an overview of cohousing including a look at senior cohousing. The second is a moving piece looking at the experiences of a woman diagnosed with cancer and how her cohousing community supported her during treatment.
In an article titled "Green in Portland," Sunset profiles three couples, one of them living in a co-housing development. Portland is famous for its natural beauty, it's commitment to environmental values and its sheer liveabilty.
"Clearly,this town is doing something right. And it all boils down to one simple idea: In Portland, people work together to get stuff done."
Two of those people are Laura Ford and Josh Devine, who live in an infill co-housing community called Sabin Green
". . . four homes on a 75- by 100-foot lot that once housed only a single two-bedroom bungalow and garage. Created by Eli Spevak, a developer specializing in affordable housing, and designed by Mark Lakeman, the homes have porches and trellises and face a central courtyard that includes built-in benches, gardens, a bike shed, and a teahouse with a living green roof. The thriving Alberta Arts District is three blocks away.
Josh and Laura's house, which they bought last year for $143,000, is a mere 530 square feet. "The greenest thing about our home is its size," says Josh, a math and social studies teacher at a school for special-needs kids. "It's the perfect way for young or low-income people to get into the housing market." The arrangement is also a handy mixture of principle and practicality. Says Laura, an assistant for the Food & Farms program at a nonprofit called Ecotrust, "Living in a tiny home really helps with our footprint, but at the same time, it's what we could afford."
The big media splash in cohousing these days is about Senior or Elder Cohousing, and some might say cohousing's core constituency is among the boomer generation. But recent posts on Trendcentral and Treehugger are noting that cohousing also has appeal for Gen X and Gen Y.
A lifestyle trend that first started back in 1960s Denmark, co-housing may be making a comeback among progressive Gen Xers and Ys....While co-housing used to be a fringe movement, it is now resonating with Xers and Ys who are starting families, searching for community and looking to pool resources.
While I don't understand how cohousing's continually fast and steady growth can be described as a "comeback", its not surprising that Gen Xand Gen Y want in on the action. It seems the appeal of cohousing cuts across generations and its only a matter of when people get into the home buying market that they will start taking a look at cohousing.
The 18 minute audio program focuses on the ecological features of the community including energy efficiency and design to minimize driving. The cohousing units received a LEED Platinum rating, the highest rating awarded by LEED.
The Nubanusit Neighborhood and Farm is a new 29-unit co-housing development being built in Peterborough, NH. The community features state-of-the-art, energy-efficient homes; a working organic farm; seven wood pellet boilers for electricity and hot water; and "roughed in" plans for photovoltaics and solar hot water systems. Stephen Lacey visited the site and brought back this story.
Greenway Park is one of the first cohousing projects created exclusively for low-income residents (most such projects are for middle- to upper-middle-class residents, and a few are mixed income) and is structurally a rental project (most cohousing raise construction funds by preselling units). Also, the building is the first affordable housing project in Chicago to have no professional manager. Greenway Park is self-managed by its residents, and future tenants are selected by current tenants.
The developers did great work to get grants and state funding to support energy efficient design for heating, cooling, and electricity. They knew that affordability doesn't just mean low purchase price or rent, but also low cost for utilities.
Greenway Park's green efforts focused on an integrated approach that incorporated a package of energy-efficient building practices, the deliberate substitution of a variety of green building materials for their more conventional counterparts, and a 2.4 kW rooftop photovoltaic system.
Despite its impeccable transit-oriented, environmentally friendly green design, plans for Sycamore Village were rejected in January 2007 by the Orangevale Community Planning Advisory Committee following complaints from area residents.
When it comes down to it, the real problem may be an entrenched Not In My Back Yard philosophy that has little to do with rational argument. Rick Mockler, of Cohousing Partners, likens the NIMBY attitude of cohousing detractors to the way many people feel about mass transit—they support the idea of public transportation, so long as they can continue driving their cars.
Sacramento already has one completed cohousing community with others in nearby Davis. Sycamore villages plan have a lot going for them:
Cohousing is usually situated within walking distance to schools and centers of commerce, and sustainability is at the center of its design. Within a quarter mile of Sycamore Village are a school, grocery store, fire station, fitness center, medical facility, dentist, restaurant, gas station and bus stop. The houses will be built with bamboo flooring, cellulose insulation and recycled decking; the grounds will include organic garden patches, permaculture landscaping and compost heaps. In other words, this project is the very definition of smart growth with a limited carbon footprint.
It sounds like they are working closely with neighbors to resolve concerns and we are hopeful they can work it all out to everyone's benefit.
But at Jackson Place, the layout of the development encourages community interaction. All units have kitchens that face a common courtyard. Each member is expected to contribute at least three hours per month on a "team" that helps manage the property.
Craig Ragland, of Songaia, says that the number of people attending the local informational meetings of the Northwest Intentional Community Association (NICA), held twice a year, tripled from about 40 to 120 in the past year. NICA's winter meeting is March 8. There also is an informational event Feb. 20 at Jackson Place.
The village is already at work on phase two: future developments are being considered and will likely include more accessible and affordable housing, a charter school, an education center, village-scale wind power, organic orchards, a roadside farm stand, graywater recycling, on-site biological wastewater treatment center, biomass energy crops, shuttle van, carshare, a natural cemetery, onsite biodiesel/vegetable-oil fuel production, and educational programs.
Not surprisingly most of the top green cities on the list are home to ecovillages, cohousing, and other forms of intentional community. Are communities attracted to green cities or are cities made green by community? I'm sure the answer is both.
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