Co-housing is a growing trend that might be mistaken for yesteryear’s communal living, but they are not the same. A co-housing community is a planned set of homes and facilities which are designed so that the owners likely have their own private homes (and sometimes but not always, their own kitchens)… but the community itself is set up to maximize their interaction with their neighbors. There may be shared spaces where people rotate duties for cooking or child care, or such amenities as a pool or playground or a shared garden. Buildings are planned with a size and scale that allows neighbors to interact frequently, for the purpose of social interaction and intergenerational contact. Often the structures are clustered to enhance the community ‘feel’ of the spaces, but there is more emphasis on also providing individual spaces than there is with communal living. Sustainable living, green construction and environmental sensitivity are keynotes to most co-housing plans. The organizational structure of co-housing can be set up as condo ownership or with a Homeowner’s association…. in both instances the documents will spell out specifically what is meant in the individual and shared responsibilities.
As with communal living, there is an effort in co-housing to make decisions with all neighbors as equal participants. To enhance their satisfaction with the co-housing choice, residents should welcome contact with other residents and should enjoy the process of group sharing. Though there are financial savings when co-housing eliminates the duplication of spaces that otherwise exist in most neighborhoods, in many cases co-housing does not offer savings in its initial stages.
Nearby Virginia we have a few functioning examples of co-housing, but none in the immediate Charlottesville area. The closest to central VA at this time is Shadowlake Village in Blacksburg. There’s also Takoma Village near D.C. and Eastern Village in Silver Springs MD.
There was a sustained effort in the Charlottesville area to produce a co-housing community near Crozet. Land was purchased and zoning was approved, a majority of the potential residents had already paid thousands of dollars to become equity partners in the community…. and then the housing/financial downfall began. With the financial crunch came an inability to secure the final funds, banks backed out, and the project is largely on hold at this time. Due to the extended timeframe with no groundbreaking in sight, many of the original partners have been forced to move on to other parts of their lives, leaving Charlottesville with an approved co-housing community that is unlikely to become a reality according to one of its developers, Jay Perry.
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