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Cohousing Development Models

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  • First Coho/US Webinar set for December
    November, 2007

    Live events, such as the upcoming Cohousing Conference are an excellent way for cohousing groups to gain valuable information and insights for creating healthy communities. However, for those who can’t wait – or simply can’t afford the trip – the Cohousing Association is pleased to offer another educational opportunity: online “webinars.”

  • Eco-community: Cohousing that preserves green space
    by Michael Blate, The Woodlands at DeerHaven Hills
    June, 2007

    Cohousing can serve a variety of purposes and take different forms. But one exciting approach is a hybrid of cohousing and the ecovillage – what I call an eco-community. Here your monthly mortgage payment does double-duty. Not only do you create a new cohousing community, you also help the environment immediately around you. You might get a spectacular park or forest for your backyard, to boot. It can be a win-win situation for everyone.

  • Grassroots financing
    by Rick Mockler, CoHousing Partners
    March, 2007

    Cohousing has matured in many respects since it immigrated to the U.S., but none so much as the development structures or the financial savvy of cohousers themselves. Since future residents expect to be involved in the design of the future neighborhood, the instruments for conventionally financed development don’t always work in the same way. Consequently, in the process of learning about real estate development and financing, cohousers are reinventing them.

  • Working with a local project manager
    by John R. McCarthy, project manager, Oak Creek Commons
    September, 2004

    I actually had no experience with cohousing when members of Oak Creek Commons first approached me about the possibility of becoming the project manager for their community. The group already had worked for about a year with a professional whose offices were outside of the area, but had discovered they needed a local, hands-on project manager who could navigate them through the many steps of constructing their new community.

  • Have conscience, will build
    by Jim Leach, president, Wonderland Hill Development Co.
    February, 2004

    Like a flame draws a moth, cohousing attracts a certain type of house builder. Somewhere in the back of our minds we think we can save the world, our country or at least our hometown from environmental and social degradation through the quality of the housing - and communities - we create. This challenge keeps many of us going in an industry full of political adversity and economic risk.

  • Development: Realizing Aspirations—Managing Expectations.

    Bruce Coldham

    Cohousing is challenged with balancing the aspirations of custom-designed housing with the standardization (driven by the desire to realize cost affordability) of production building. This presentation explains how the offering of a small set of “basic unit types” with a modest “standard package of options” and the opportunity (disencouraged and priced accordingly) for customization at the discretion of the architect has produced a delightful, award-winning residential setting beloved by its inhabitants. The Rocky Hill cohousing community in Florence MA is the third in an evolving suite of cohousing projects by Coldham and Hartman that have dealt with this challenge.

  • Planning: Working with New Urbanist Masterplan Developers

    Katie McCamant & Jim Leach

    Since the 1981 building of Seaside, Florida, New Urbanism has become one of the most significant movements in American architecture, planning and development dedicated to providing alternatives to suburban sprawl. Committed to developing the physical settings most likely to support close-knit relationships, cohousing is a perfect fit with New Urbanist development. Learn how to pitch your cohousing community to a New Urbanist masterplan developer. Learn to identify the most attractive opportunities for optimizing the natural advantages of cohousing neighborhoods within the larger context of planned New Urbanist developments.

  • Development: Participation in the Cohousing Design Process by Future Residents ... Part of the Solution or Most of the Problem

    Ann Zabaldo, moderator, Chuck Durrett, Chris ScottHansen, Don Tucker

    This panel will discuss the vices and virtues of when and where to include future residents in the design process. From the beginning? After a site plan, housing plans or CH plan are developed? Can a community be called cohousing if there is NO resident involvement in the design process? What is the impact of including or excluding residents in the design process on community building including developing “social capital” among the future residents?

  • Development: Cohousers Partnering with Developers? The Pros and the Cons

    Jim Leach, Stew Mayer

    Why does developing a cohousing community sometimes take 10 years or more to complete? Would groups have an easier time if they partnered with developers? Would it be more expensive? Would the group have to give up control? How can decision-making be handled fairly between cohousers and developers? This workshop explains in detail how a group and a development firm can successfully work together as partners. Questions that will be touched upon in detail include: a) What is the difference between a contractor and a developer? b) Who is taking how much risk and what is the cost of that risk? c) Where does the money come from? d) Budgeting and transparency.

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