Cohousing Q&A
Q. WHAT IS THIS COHOUSING?
A. It is the combination of autonomous, private houses forming a small scale community around shared common facilities - (in particular a common house). The idea, in its contemporary form, was pioneered in Denmark during the 1970's, and later adopted in other northern European countries. Cohousing combines the autonomy of single family housing with the advantages of cooperative living.
Q. WELL IT SOUNDS INTERESTING, BUT WHY WOULD MY FAMILY AND I WANT TO CHOOSE IT?
A. For some or all of the following reasons:
* Mutual family support - single and dual-income parent families often find their lives stretched to the breaking point. Cohousing provides a structure within which multi-family cooperation works to reduce this tension.
* Companionship - people often feel isolated in conventional houses. The automobile has severed the links between families in neighborhoods. Cohousing offers community life, conviviality, and a sense of belonging.
* Security - people who feel isolated can also feel afraid, especially in trying times. A cohousing community is the best neighborhood watch system going. Parents also rest easier knowing that many sympathetic eyes are watching their children play.
* Affordability - Cohousing developments can be accomplished at less cost than conventional housing, but we will speak more on that later.
Q. THEN EACH FAMILY HAS ITS OWN HOUSE - RIGHT?
A. Yes, that's absolutely correct. Everyone!
Q. YOU MENTIONED A COMMON HOUSE, WHAT IS A COMMON HOUSE?
A. The common house is a separate building, designed to be the focus of the community, built along with all of the private houses, but jointly owned and used by all residents. It houses facilities that are used continually by everybody. These could include the following: children's playroom(s), workshop, a guest suite, a well equipped laundry, a library or TV room, a music practice room, a root cellar, a jacuzzi or a hot tub. But most especially, a common house can have at its heart a large common dining room and kitchen where week-day evening meals are prepared, in rotation, by a couple of residents for the benefit of all.
Q. ME ... COOK A MEAL FOR 70 PEOPLE - YOU'D HAVE TO BE JOKING!
A. Think about it ... cook once every three weeks instead of every night. Think what you could do with the time that you didn't have to cook. Think of the relief. Think of community dinners as pleasant social occasions filled with interesting discussion. Think how you could actually enjoy cooking a really big meal only once in a while. Cooking for 70 people may seem like an enormous job, but in a spacious, well equipped kitchen it's much easier - just 10 times as much of everything. It is certainly far less daunting the second time than the first - you only need one recipe because three weeks later everyone is ready for your curry again.
Q. WOULDN'T THAT BE MORE EXPENSIVE - I MEAN BUILDING A WHOLE EXTRA COMMON HOUSE AS WELL AS PRIVATE HOUSES?
A. Not necessarily. Private houses in cohousing arrangements are usually slightly smaller than they would be if they were entirely unsupported by a common house. Typically, each private dwelling is 10 - 15% smaller with the difference going to the common house. For example private dwellings might be 1300 s.f. instead of 1500 s.f. In a cohousing community of 20 households 20 x 200 s.f. = 4,000 s.f. of common house. Furthermore, with availability of a common house, private houses can have simpler kitchens, smaller living rooms, and perhaps have no laundry at all.
Q. SMALLER HOUSES?... BUT WE ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT WE WOULD MOVE UP TO A BIGGER HOUSE.
A. It is only slightly smaller, and it is only slightly smaller if you want to save the money. Cohousing allows you to build a smaller house without loss of amenity. The common house makes up the loss and more - it's your answer to cabin fever and it's a venue for children when household tranquility is sought.
Q. SHARING SPACES WITH OTHER FAMILIES - I KNOW I WAS TAUGHT ABOUT SHARING IN KINDERGARTEN, BUT THAT WAS A LONG TIME AGO!
A. We share a local library, why not a common house. In both cases we need common agreement as to the terms. If that can be achieved, think of the potential. You own 1/20th of something, you have 1/20th of its cost and maintenance, but - by arrangement - you have 100% of the its use when you need it. If you are each only committing to 1/20th of the cost, you and the group can afford items of vastly superior quality - items that are more enjoyable to use, produce better results, and which last longer (even under the conditions of shared use). Often, with such items as a hot tub or a living room, you would choose to use it in company with others. Often, with guidance and help of others, a tool is far more useful to us.
Q. WHO CLEANS UP THE COMMON HOUSE - HOW DO WE AGREE ON THAT FOR INSTANCE?
A. Everyone - according to an agreed routine. A cohousing community typically assumes the entire management responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of their buildings and site - just as private households do across the country. Self-management is a growing phenomenon in the corporate and community life of America. Responsibilities, like cooking and cleaning, are typically divided among work groups in which all residents must participate.
Q. HOW CAN I BE SURE THAT IT WILL FUNCTION LIKE THAT. THERE ARE CONDOMINIUMS ALL OVER THE PLACE WERE THE RESIDENTS REFUSE TO COOPERATE?
A. That's true, but those residents were not active participants in the design and development of the project in which they all live. Experience in Europe has shown that active participation of intending residents from the very beginning is critical factor in the subsequent success of the cohousing community. Therefore, a fundamental characteristic of this form of housing is the phenomenon of people joining together to design their own houses and their own micro-community setting. It is the joint accomplishment that forms the personal bonds necessary for successful operation of these common spaces
Q. SO PARTICIPATION IS THE KEY?
A. Yes, it appears to be. Research shows that when residents are not involved in the planning process they use the common facilities less frequently and usually require assistance in management Building a community requires collective appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of individual members. The "shared struggle" - active participation in the development and design process - is an opportunity to discover oneselves as a functioning community. It is both empowering and bonding.
Q. "RESIDENT-DEVELOPERS"... HOW DOES A GROUP OF AMATEURS BECOME PROPERTY DEVELOPERS… I THOUGHT THAT TOOK ALOT OF EXPERIENCE?
A. It does take alot of experience and hard work, but then there is often a great deal of the relevant experience and skill in a group of 20 households. The challenge is exactly the same as that of a single family working with an architect to "develop" a private dwelling, and that happens all the time. Here the scale of the project is larger and the client body is more complex, so certainly it is not without difficulty. But, as with all such projects from houses to schools, there are competent and committed professionals who are prepared to consult on the client group's terms (Note: Professionals such as ourselves are constantly working to develop and improve techniques for best serving the needs of cohousing client groups).
Q. WHAT HAPPENS IF I WANT TO SELL MY HOUSE IN A COHOUSING COMMUNITY?
A. Typically you would have no trouble. European experience is that dwellings in cohousing communities hold their value or appreciate faster than the market as a whole.
Q. YOU MEAN I CAN SELL TO WHOMEVER I WANT?
A. Yes, that is typical. European experience (and my own personal experience) is that resale of houses is handled much the same as the formation of the group in the first place: by word-of-mouth. Often there is a waiting list. Again, this means cost savings since there need be no realtors fees. Covenants, deed restrictions and the like, aimed at narrowing the market, are generally anathema to cohousing groups who usually strive to increase the diversity of their immediate community.
Q. YOU SAID THIS COULD MAKE MY HOUSING MORE AFFORDABLE - TELL ME HOW?
A. In all of the following ways:
1. 'Preselling' the houses the resident-developers are the buyers and they come first - since forming their cohousing group is the beginning of the process. This takes the sting out of marketing, and some financial burden (the Realtors' commissions, and interest payments over 2 or 3 years of building and waiting for buyers) off the project, thereby reducing the cost of housing units
2. Building less space means spending less money. By reexamining what must be private and what can be used in common with a group of known and trusted individuals, resident-developers can build smaller private dwelling units, supported by the common service and recreational spaces, for a net saving in space without loss of amenity.
3. Building a supportive, caring, and cohesive micro-community means more disposable income for its constituents because living costs are lowered. Bulk buying saves money. Cooperation between friends lessens the stress of childrearing and daycare, distributes the responsibility for family maintenance, and makes life more manageable for working parents. With childcare costs reduced, and parental anxiety diminished, paid work pays more.
4. Designing and planning for future expansion. Cohousing supports this approach to affordability by offering the common house (even a small one) as an alternate living space and thereby making an extremely small (600s.f.) "starter" home a practical possibility.
5. Allowing for "sweat-equity" (owner-building).
Q. "SWEAT-EQUITY" (SOUNDS SMELLY TO ME) WHAT IS THAT?
A. Building all or part of your own dwelling is an excellent route to affording a house, as well as to skill development and to building self esteem, but it can be awfully trying to accomplish alone. Cohousing provides a structure within which Mutual Self-help Building becomes a neighborhood affair. Of course there are degrees. Tasks that are done in conventional developments in order to give a finished, saleable appearance will usually be undertaken by residents. Less frequently groups may become their own general contractor -- and some even do all of their own framing and finishing.
Q. BUT THAT'S SKILLED STUFF, AGAIN HOW CAN AMATEUR PERSPIRANTS DO THAT KIND OF WORK AND DO IT PROPERLY?
A. If you can share a common house, you can share a work supervisor. Also not everyone is an amateur – a lot of people have basic building skills, and groups of 20 households often have skilled tradespeople in their ranks. Cohousers bent on sweat-equity can band together and employ a skilled tradesperson to guide them and to help them get the best value for their personal efforts.
Q. IT'S A LOT OF EFFORT, WOULDN'T I BE BETTER OF DOING WHAT I DO BEST AND PAYING A CARPENTER TO DO WHAT S/HE DOES BEST?
A. Maybe you would. It's not for everybody. But ask yourself ... Is this the difference between owning and not owning? (and is that important?) Is this the opportunity that I've been waiting for to really learn how a building goes together? (It makes future maintenance a lot easier). Am I not moved by the thrill of a barn-raising, and empowered by a joint sense of achievement? Maybe this could be the start of a new career.
Q. HOW MUCH TIME WOULD I NEED TO PUT IN TO MAKE IT WORTHWHILE - DON'T FORGET, I WORK DAYS?
A. It all depends on how much of the total construction task is bitten off. A reasonable maximum seems to be 30 hours/week/family ("family" includes grandparents, uncles, and willing friends). It's not for everyone ... but it is an option for some and cohousing makes it easier for those who chose it. I met a single woman at Petaluma, CA who, as part of a five household group, was busily bolting down a sill plate - and pleased to be offered the opportunity to do so.
Q. YOU MENTIONED CLUSTERING HOUSES ... IS CLUSTERING IMPORTANT? WHY NOT KEEP HOUSES SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER?
A. Don't forget that these are micro-communities that have chosen themselves. They are groups that have worked together on a project ... the development of their own housing. They are close-knit groups before they move in. Clustering creates the kind of pedestrian environment that facilitates human interactions, that in turn provides the conditions that attracts people to form these kind of housing arrangements. Clustering (proximity to a common house) helps households to get the maximum value from a common house - particularly in the chilly northeast. In Europe the trend is to actually roofing the "street" between the houses. It provides a splendid sunspace, and allows year round passage between home and common house without reaching for overcoats, umbrellas, and clogs. Tightly clustered housing is a natural consequence of cohousing.
Q. IF HOUSES ARE CLOSE TOGETHER WHAT DOES THAT DO TO MY PRIVACY?
A. Privacy is important, not only to the family/household unit, but also to the individual within the household. Providing a gradation from private to public (community scale) spaces is important to successful cohousing. But privacy is different from isolation. It's community-and-privacy that is needed not privacy-and-isolation. Privacy is guaranteed when people have clearly understood and universally respected signals - such as a closed door, or a drawn shade. Privacy involves people respecting each other's needs more than it does situating oneself in a isolated corner of the woods. In some ways privacy can be better secured in these clustered, pedestrian environments than it can in suburbia.
Q. "PEDESTRIAN ENVIRONMENT" ... WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CAR?
A. Your car is still there, though it is a little further away, and a little less frequent a visitor to your front doorstep. The sociability, mutual family support, and security that give rise to the attractive essence of cohousing, are frustrated by the invasion of motor vehicles. Consolidating parking means constructing less pavement and drainage. This leads to less expensive housing.
Q. BUT SOMETIMES I WANT A CAR TO "INVADE MY SPACE" ... I CERTAINLY WANT THE FIRETRUCK TO "INVADE" IF MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE.
A. Emergency access is required, and therefore guaranteed, by building codes. Such access is usually achieved by stabilizing grass and/or by constructing pedestrian walkways strong enough and wide enough to support the weight of these vehicles.
Q. BUT WE ONLY SHOP ONCE A WEEK AND WE BUY A LOT OF GROCERIES....
A. Limited access for drop-off can be designed for. The Dutch even have a name for it: they call such hybrid streets "woonerfs". However, remember that there's a common house adjacent to the parking (see diagram) which is both an immediate shelter and a destination for a portion of the groceries.
Q. IT'S A TOUGH CLIMATE HERE... I MEAN SOMETIMES IT'S SLEETING OUT THERE!
A. Yes, all these factors have to be weighed. But do think about it. The social life of a close-knit community is torn apart by the uncontrolled invasion of motor vehicles -- and it's children particularly who suffer. Ultimately it is a compromise: no cars at all vs. limited access for drop-off vs. cars rule. The question is: how great a concession in vehicle access are you prepared to make in return for a more vital, safe, and supportive micro-community?
Q. WHAT ELSE CAN YOU TELL ME?
A. Cohousing has a particular value in nurturing domestic entrepreneurs (and entrepreneuses) in incubating small business growth out of home-offices. It is easier to avoid the isolation which is so much an occupational hazard of the domestic workforce. The common-house facilities can include "supplementary" rooms which can be leased to temporarily expand the space needs of residents. Such inexpensive space close to home is ideal for an infirmed relative, a rebellious teen, ... or for an expanding home-office. This style of housing has significant positive implications for ecological sustainability.
Q. HOW DOES COHOUSING CONTRIBUTE TO ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY?
A. By tightly clustering housing, service infrastructure is concentrated. Renewable energy technologies such as central solar heating with seasonal storage, and solar aquatic wastewater treatment become more practical. Cohousing offers the opportunity for open (farm) land preservation through the concentration of development rights on a small portion of a larger parcel. This could be a way for struggling farms to obtain a cash infusion without completely succumbing to a cash crop of houses. Such an arrangement would be all the more beneficial if the farm family(s) were to become members of a cohousing group and were to gain casual labor support from other members of the cohousing community.
Q. SO I COULD BE A MEMBER OF A "FARM COMMUNITY"?
A. Yes ... does that appeal to you? Cohousers could contribute to the operations of the (truck) farm in similar fashion to the "farm communities" of South Amherst, MA and of Wilton, NH. The pattern of daily living is amplified by the routines of the farm. Children’s life space is enhanced. There are things to do: things to learn. Abundant fresh food is at hand; (from the farmers' standpoint, a small market is at hand). The common house kitchen, and its social setting, provides a convenient and lively setting for canning, preserving, or freezing. The common house basement can be equipped with a serviceable root cellar. Such an arcadian prospect is not an elusive dream. It is well within the grasp of a community conceived in this way.
Q. HOW DOES THIS FIT WITH EXISTING ZONING LAWS?
A. From a planning by-law standpoint, a cohousing development is either a "planned unit development" or a "clustered development" and these are familiar entities to planning departments and zoning boards.
Q. HOW WILL ABUTTERS REACT?
A. In the early prototypical projects there may be a general perception of uncertainty and innovation. This tendency can be controlled by seeing and stressing the similarities between cohousing and conventional approaches to housing development - rather than exciting (and scaring) bankers and regulators with the "radical, new approach".
Q. HOW MANY FAMILIES (OR HOUSEHOLDS) DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A COHOUSING COMMUNITY?
A. Danish experience is that between 20 and 25 households is ideal. It is small enough to retain the feeling of an intimate community, but large enough so that if you don't like some one it's not going to ruin your life. Of course there are some that are larger, and many that are smaller. In Australia we belonged to five family group that has persisted amicably for 12 years already.
Q. HOW CAN I GET TWENTY FAMILIES TOGETHER?
A. You can start by placing an advertisement in the local paper -- that's what John and Christina Porcino did in Amherst, MA. last August. You can start by calling up twenty friends -- that's what I did in Melbourne, Australia 12 years ago. It helps if you have a good site in mind from the outset.
The word "Cohousing" is a service mark of Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett who first coined the word in association with their book "Cohousing: A contemporary Approach to Housing ourselves" 1988, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA.
Read more:
CoHousing
Cohousing Q&A
Cohousing as Affordable Housing
Intentional Living: Community, Ecology, and Architecture