Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Floor Plans

[mike slama (mike.slama.coho]

<<On Apr 27, 2025, at 1:16?AM, Linda Gryczan <lindagryczan [at] gmail.com 
<mailto:lindagryczan [at] gmail.com>> wrote:
I am working on building a 4-6 unit pocket neighborhood and looking for two 
story floor plans. 
I envision an accessible unit on the first floor with an identical unit on the 
second... >>

Linda,

Congratulations on taking steps to bring more community into the world!  Below 
is a reference to our website and our single story floorplan that may be of 
interest for the design of your ground floor.

Our group, Puyallup Cohousing, has been quietly making progress for quite a 
while now. We're just a couple of weeks away from submitting our preliminary 
land use application to Pierce County, Washington. (We anticipate that public 
outreach and marketing will ramp up later this year, once we’ve finalized our 
legal structure and pro forma.)

We’re experimenting with some unconventional strategies in response to the high 
cost of typical cohousing units in WA state — often $600,000–$700,000 for a 2BR 
or 3BR. One of our goals is to lower the financial barrier to entry into the 
community, and to do that, we’re designing our homes from the ground up to 
support co-ownership and co-living, rather than traditional single-family 
ownership.

Our design is influenced by the Corvidae  
<https://www.frolic.community/projects/corvidae-co-op>community in Seattle and 
recent policy changes like WA  
<https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/3190324/Co-Living_Fact_Sheet_and_Model_Ordinance.pdf>House
 Bill 1998 
<https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/3190324/Co-Living_Fact_Sheet_and_Model_Ordinance.pdf>.
 You might find inspiration in our unit layout: we start with a simple, 
ADA-accessible 2BR/1BA 1200 sq ft single-story core — which sounds similar to 
what you're imagining for your ground floor. Around this core, we’ve added four 
300 sq ft studio-style ‘bedrooms', each with its own kitchenette and bath. 
These function like tiny homes, creating a 2400 sq ft, 6BR/5BA shared-living 
unit.  We’re focusing more on the number of people in our community - using 
bedrooms as a proxy - rather than the number of units.  How many people (or 
bedrooms) were you envisioning in your 4-6 unit pocket neighborhood?

We developed this floor plan in partnership with Wolf Industries 
<https://wolfind.com/>, a modular home builder in southern WA. If our pilot is 
successful, the plan may eventually be available on their website as a standard 
offering. We’re hoping the county will treat our buildings as "just another 
McMansion" — but with a much more community-oriented purpose.

You can see the floor plan and read more about our approach and strategies on 
our website under the “The Land” tab: https://puyallupcohousing.org/land/

Best of luck in developing your pocket neighborhood,

Mike Slama