Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Coho under our noses [FWD]

[Fred H Olson WB0YQM (fholson]

Russell Mawby, CoHoSoc, Toronto  c/o TOMP [at] TVO.ORG 
is the author of this message but due
to a listserv problem it was posted by the COHOUSING-L sysop (Fred).
****************  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS *********************


In response to enquiries about examples of "spontaneous
cohousing", here are _excerpts_ from two articles I have
written about collaborative communities.  There are hundreds
of similar examples all around us - places where, for one
reason or another, people choose to work together, without
tying themselves in knots about constitutions and rules of
conduct.  I believe that design is the crucial element here -
some places encourage neighbourliness, others don't.
Cohousing seems to be the first model of development that
tends to produce places that support co-operation, but I still
feel it is a state of mind, that (appropriate) bricks and mortar
only facilitates.


"Housing Ourselves", in:  Canadian Housing, Summer 1994.

About three years ago, in North Toronto, six households on a
quiet residential street decided to tear down their backyard
fences.  Their reason for this radical move was a shared love
of gardening.  The immediate result of this act of de-
construction was a wonderful six-lot long garden, with flower
beds, vegetable patches, private patios, winding garden paths
and the most efficient composting bed in the city.  But they
got more than they bargained for.  At first, they started sharing
gardening equipment and supplies.  Then they  all pitched in
and bought a roto-tiller.  Next came bulk-buying of food and
shared vacations.  The last anyone heard, they were
contemplating buying a van together.  This is cohousing.

At about the same time, a group of artists in downtown
Toronto decided they wanted to buy a photocopier, but
couldn't decide where to put it.  They all lived and worked in
different parts of the city, and no one wanted to volunteer to
have people dropping by at odd hours to crank out copies of
who knows what.  They ended up buying a building together,
not only as a place to put a photocopier and other office
equipment, but also as a place to live and work.  They were
each able to build their own unit to suit their own needs,
ranging from pottery kilns to storage for exotic papers and
woods.  As an added bonus, they no longer have to worry
about being turfed out of their funky loft- style spaces by
sleazy landlords.  This too is cohousing.

More recently, a group of seniors to the west of Toronto found
themselves faced with the necessity of moving away from their
rural village.  The regional government could not justify
providing the supportive services usually offered to seniors
because of the low population density of the area.  That the
low density was due to the development practices encouraged
by the region over the years was beside the point.  These
seniors decided to create their own "supportive services" by
building their own new village, replacing the one that had
gradually disappeared.  The region has now jumped on board
and is actively supporting the group as they tackle questions
of water supply, settlement areas and housing density, and,
yes, supportive services.  This, particularly, is cohousing.

* * *

"Cooperating in an Uncooperative World" in: Ontario Planning
Journal, Jan/Feb 1995.

The most community-minded, softly spiritual place I have ever
visited is a group of eight large single-family homes on 92
acres of rolling farmland north of Toronto (Rowanwood).  They
don't call themselves CoHousing - the word hadn't been
invented when they started building 18 years ago.  They also
don't have a common house, although they intend to build
something like it as soon as they can afford to.  Each house
is a common house for this group.  One family has two
freezers that everyone else shares.  Another has a computer
that the neighbour's kids use for homework and fun.  Pot-luck
dinners are the norm, not special events.  Every home was
built with the help - both financial and labour - of the rest of the
community.

Their land is owned in common, and some of the households
use the shared tractor to dabble in farming, but since of the
most adults have to work for a living, formal shared activies are
scarce.  It is the informal nature of their community that is so
inspiring, and noteworthy . . . they ended up with one acre lots
because of local attitudes about density and rural planning,
but this has not hampered their desire to work together.

* * *

Russell Mawby, CoHoSoc, Toronto