Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Bootstrapping a community: alternatives to building?

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Jonathan —

I suggest looking at the Boulder Creek Community in Boulder, CO.  You can get 
their info in the directory on Cohousing.org website.  Their community is a 
combination of people who have rented in the same condo complex as well as 
non-residential members.

I also suggest looking at the examples of retrofit cohousing.  This is a 
process in which individuals buy up housing on a single block or in proximity 
to each other.  N Street Cohousing is the grandaddy of this example.  Temescal 
Creek in CA is one of the loveliest examples of retrofit cohousing.  (I’m sure 
there are many others equally as lovely — I just haven’t seen them all!)  
Again, you can get contact info for these two communities via the Directory on 
Cohousing.org

In many areas of the country the cost of development is quite dear.  In “hot” 
markets such as DC, trying to find a building site is a long term adventure.  
We need more accessible ways to develop cohousing keeping the criteria for 
cohousing very clear. I applaud your investigating new avenues of development.


Best --

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC
Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
Falls Church, VA
202.546.4654

A friend recently told me I was delusional.  I nearly fell off my unicorn.


> On Nov 3, 2016, at 7:26 PM, Jonathan Kallay <yoni [at] kallay.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Some of you may know that I'm trying to form a new community on Seattle's 
> Eastside. I'm also generally interested in exploring ways to increase the 
> scalability of cohousing. The fact that forming new communities seems to 
> require amateurs to get into the real-estate development business seems to be 
> a serious obstacle, so I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with, 
> knowledge of, or thoughts about cohousing communities that don't build their 
> own facilities. In particular, as mixed-use buildings become more common, it 
> seems reasonable to bootstrap a community in one by occupying its residential 
> units and part of its commercial space for the common house. For the sake of 
> argument, let's suppose that all of the residential units are leased as a 
> block from the pre-existing property management and re-let to the members, 
> with dues for the common house added on top.
> 
> 
> In asking the question, I'd prefer to side-step the question of whether this 
> fits into a definition of cohousing (the fact that there might be a third 
> party owning and managing the facilities would disqualify it according to Ty 
> Albright's rubric, but that's a semantic challenge rather than a logistical 
> one).
> 
> 
> Jonathan
> 
> 
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