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| The Cobb Hill Co-Housing community project in Hartland, Vt. |
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The Cobb Hill Co-Housing community project in Hartland, Vt., is an intentional community of people who want to explore the challenge of living in ways that are materially sufficient, socially and ecologically responsible.
Co-housing is the name of a type of housing that brings together shared resources and living spaces in an attempt to avoid the often-solitary living common to modern subdivisions and to build a sense of community. Although there is no one model, typically co-housing is characterized by private dwellings with extensive common facilities. Common facilities may include dining rooms, kitchen, lounges, meeting rooms, recreation facilities, library, workshops, and childcare. The main characteristics of co-housing, as delivered by Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett at the 3rd North American Co-housing Conference in Seattle, September, 1997, includes the following guidelines:
Participatory Process - Resident participate in the planning and design of the development of the community so that it directly responds to their needs. (Developer initiated/driven projects are in no way a threat to this. In most cases, developer initiation may actually make it easier for more people to participate in the process. On the other hand, a well-designed, pedestrian-oriented community with no resident involvement in the planning might be "co-housing inspired", but is not a co-housing community.)
Neighborhood Design - The physical design encourages a sense of community as well as maintaining the option for privacy. (It is harder to define here exactly what constitutes "encouraging a sense of community," but rather than saying it must be a pedestrian-oriented design with the cars at the periphery, it is more important that residents are involved in the decision making and the intent must be to create a "strong sense of community" with design as one of the facilitators.
Private homes supplemented by common facilities - Common facilities are designed for daily use; they are an integral part of the community and typically include a dining area, sitting area, children's play room, guest room, as well as garden and other amenities. Each household owns a private residence ---complete with kitchen--but also shares extensive common facilities with the larger group. (Co-housing is not a shared house. A shared house could be included in a co-housing community but is a different community/housing type.)
Non-hierarchical structure and decision-making - There are leadership roles, but not leaders. The community is not dependent on any one person, even though there is often a "burning soul" that gets the community off the ground, and another that pulls together the financing, and another that makes sure you, the group, has babysitters for meetings, and another...If your community has a leader that sets policy or establishes standards unilaterally, it is not co-housing.
The community is not a primary income source for residents - There is no shared community economy: If the community provides residents with their primary income, this is a significant change to the dynamic between neighbors and defines another level of community beyond the scope of co-housing.
Co-Housing related resources on the Web: Cobb Hill's Website and The CoHousing Network.
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