Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Small scale coho

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

There was once upon a time a group in Seattle  which purchased an 8 unit
apartment building. It has been several years since I visited them, but they
had a nice community setup going and all kinds of visions and ideas.  I am
not sure they did, or do, fit some folks strict definitions of what
cohousing is but that probably does not matter to them.  The boundaries
between cohousing and intentional community can get blurry. In my state
many, if not most non-cohousing intentional communities are quite small.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Cohousing
Snohomish County, WA 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jared Frandson, MD [mailto:jfrandson [at] gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 3:33 PM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ Small scale coho


I looked back and couldn't find this particular topic, but if it has been
discussed before, bear with me.

What do you all think of the idea of micro-cohousing?  My spouse and I have
been long-term coho enthusiasts and while we have both lived in cooperative
houses we have never lived in cohousing.  We have signed up for and
participated in the development of two different coho projects, but for
various reasons have not been involved in one that actually came to
completion (yet).  We have some friends who are also interested in
cooperative living but the forming cohousing groups here in minnesota are in
various rather early stages and the existing cohousing group is mature and
seems to see little turnover.

The housing market, being the way it is, we have noticed a plethora of
multiunit buildings for sale, for far cheaper prices than they used to be.
Seems like a good opportunity for retrofit cohousing.  We are thinking of
purchasing a large 3-4 unit Victorian house and then condoize it in a
cohousing style.  I guess this would actually be a cohouse, rather than
cohousing.

Too me this has the advantage of small scale and fast set up, avoiding the
long development process.  Disadvantage is that with such a small
population, losing one unit could be drastic for the project.

I know of other retrofits and partial retrofits, but anyone know of any
other small scale cohousing groups in existence?

Jared.
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