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Budgeting for Development: Finding the Balance between Hope and Caution

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by Chris ScottHanson, Cohousing Resources LLC

Having worked for cohousing groups over the years, creating budgets and schedules and cash flow plans, I have often been asked, “Why does our project have to cost so much? Why is our budget so high?” Recently the question was asked of me again in Brooklyn, so I thought it might be good to address this issue in writing and share it with the greater cohousing community.

“Solar Panel” Says it All

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by Lorenzo Bassman, LaQuerencia/Fresno Cohousing

News Flash: Worst Downturn in Housing Market in Decades! Mortgage Crisis Forces Glut of Foreclosures! Too Many Homes For Sale – Nothing Selling! Fresno Cohousing Prices Locked in at Above-Market Rates! Fresno Cohousing Membership Votes to Increase Prices by $10K!

What’s wrong with this picture? Or, perhaps more significantly, what’s right with it?

A New Kind of Cohousing?

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by Diana Leafe Christian

“I feel a little intimidated to say this,” the attractive older woman began hesitantly, “but living in senior cohousing next to Songaia was what drew me here in the first place. I don’t want to live in a community where children are the main focus. I do want this to be senior cohousing.”

Twenty Years Later: The State of Cohousing in America

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by Brad Gunkel, Architect, McCamant & Durrett Architects

It is the eve of the 2008 Cohousing Conference. It has been 20 years since the concept of cohousing was introduced to an increasingly transient and anonymous American population. It therefore seems like a natural time to step back and survey the movement’s current state, as well as its trajectory – to measure our successes and to recognize the work that lies ahead.

Building an urban village: Retrofit Cohousing

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by Fred H. Olson

Most cohousing communities in the U.S. are newly built neighborhoods with the homes arrayed along a pedestrian street or clustered around a courtyard, in close proximity to the community’s common house. But new construction is expensive and building sites in urban areas are few, so some people are finding ways to adapt existing blocks of housing and to change usage patterns to develop what is commonly called “retrofit cohousing.”

Making cohousing affordable: Strategies and successes, part 3 of 3

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by Renee Hart, a founding member of CoHo Ecovillage

There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that Mike Volpe, the president of CoHo Ecovillage, was meant to have a home there, in the cohousing community now being built in Corvallis, Oregon. Mike wasn’t nearly as optimistic. Owning a home would mean giving up his Medicaid benefits, and that simply wasn’t an option. Mike has had primary progressive Multiple Sclerosis since he was 23. This particular form of MS is relentless in its pursuit, and it pursued Mike’s health with a vengeance, gradually taking away his ability to walk, to move his hands, and to see clearly.

Making cohousing affordable: Strategies and successes, part 2 of 3

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by Brad Gunkel, Architect, McCamant & Durrett Architects

The question must have gone through the collective consciousness of more than one cohousing group over the years: “Can we convince affordable housing developers to build affordable cohousing communities?” To the surprise of many cohousers, the answer is actually “yes.”

Making cohousing affordable: Strategies and successes, part 1 of 3

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by Betsy Morris, Coho/US Research Director

A glance at a detailed map of U.S. cohousing communities would show that most of us are living in areas of relatively high property values: on the coasts, in college towns or on the outskirts of high-tech growth centers. That’s one reason why making cohousing affordable to the widest possible number of people has been of intense interest to prospective community members throughout the history of the cohousing movement.

Eco-community: Cohousing that preserves green space

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by Michael Blate, The Woodlands at DeerHaven Hills

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.

To boldly go: Visitability in cohousing

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by Eleanor Smith, East Lake Commons

When our community, East Lake Commons, held its first formal meeting in 1997, one of the first official decisions was that all the units would be designed with two features making each home “visitable” by members with mobility impairments: at least one entrance with zero steps, and at least a half-bathroom on the main floor, with a door wide enough for wheelchair passage.

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