Denver Post

Co-housing efforts seek diversity
Community-living conference at CU to aim for more cultures
By Kristi Arellano
Denver Post Business Writer

Monday, June 16, 2003 - Co-housing residents used to struggle to convince neighbors and zoning departments that their communities weren't cults or hippie communes.

Now, proponents of these community-focused housing developments, where residents share meals, cars and parenting duties, are working to move beyond their white, middle-class roots and bring a greater cross-section of the community into their fold.

"Co-housing is focused on creating diverse communities," said Arthur Okner, who lives at Nomad, a north Boulder co-housing community. "The next step for us is to bring in more income levels and more people of color."

Leaders of the co-housing movement will focus their attention on the diversity issue this week at the National Co-housing Conference at the University of Colorado at Boulder. About 200 residents, developers and planners are expected at the four-day conference.

Planners brought the biennial event to Boulder because Colorado is one of the hottest co-housing markets in the country. Colorado and Washington state share the distinction of having the second-largest number of completed co-housing communities in the nation, with nine each. Only California has more, with 14 finished projects.

Colorado also has a high concentration of co-housing developers and consultants.

Co-housing communities in Colorado range in size from the 11-unit Nomad Co-housing in Boulder to the 42-unit Nyland community in Lafayette. There are three other projects underway - in Boulder, Carbondale and Longmont.

"There is a very strong support system for co-housing in Colorado," said Zev Paiss, a conference organizer and Nomad resident. Paiss and his wife, Neshama Abraham Paiss, run a consulting firm that helps new co-housing developments market their projects. Zev Paiss also manages a fund that provides financing to emerging developments.

People who live in co-housing communities said they were drawn to them because the developments allow them to build close relationships with their neighbors. Homes in the developments typically face a central courtyard and have a common house, where residents gather for meals once or twice a week.

"It's possible, I suppose, to generate a strong sense of community in a traditional setting, but co-housing makes it so much easier," said Kellie Teter, a public-health worker who lives at Hearthstone, a co-housing complex in the Elitch's redevelopment in northwest Denver. "The communities are physically and intentionally designed to foster community."

Co-housing groups typically form long before they've found property. They participate in a consensus-driven design process and are required to contribute a set number of hours for community upkeep.

But the real key to co-housing, residents said, is the day-to-day interaction fostered by the communities. Residents walk freely into one another's homes and often take care of one another's children.

"Instead of going next door and asking for a cup of sugar, you go next door, open the cupboard and get the sugar," Paiss said.

The developments often attract families who are seeking the support of other parents.

"As a stay-at-home mom, it can be very challenging to provide a social atmosphere for your child," said Angelique Espinoza, who moved to Nomad with her husband, David Vollmor, and their 2- year-old son, Luka, in March.

Living in the development allows Espinoza to socialize with other adults and gives Luka a chance to play with other children, she said.

"Since we moved in, he's just blossomed. His language skills and motor skills have increased because he's always trying to keep up with the older kids," Espinoza said.

Co-housing also appeals to singles and seniors, who say it provides them with extended families.

"Once you're retired, if you don't have family around, all you can really do is hang out at senior centers and hope that somebody will invite you to dinner every once in a while," said Okner, 61.

Okner said he rarely sees his grandson, who lives on the East Coast, but he's become the self-appointed grandfather to the children in the community.

"I no longer lead a life of desperation," he said.

Co-housing has attracted a variety of age groups, but because the cost of the common indoor and outdoor areas are rolled into the home price, the projects have eluded many lower-income residents.

Jim Leach, president of Wonderland Hill Development Co., a Boulder-based co-housing builder, estimates that homes in co-housing communities can cost from 10 percent to 30 percent more per square foot than traditional homes.

"If you buy a $200,000 house in co-housing, its going to be smaller than a regular $200,000 house," he said.

But Colorado's newest co-housing community - a 34-unit development called Wild Sage that broke ground Saturday at the Holiday Drive-In redevelopment in north Boulder - will be the first to partner with a nonprofit housing provider to make some units affordable to low-income residents.

Wild Sage has teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to build four homes at Wild Sage. Ten more units will be kept permanently affordable as part of requirement of the city's housing authority, Boulder Housing Partners.

But it's the Habitat units that excite Wild Sage residents.

"If you're going to have diversity in a community, it's very important that we have all types of diversity, not just age," said Annie Russell, who will move to Wild Sage once it's completed.

Habitat has already selected the families that will occupy the units, and they have spent several months meeting with the residents and helping plan the development.

"It's a refreshing change to work with people that are excited to have some income diversity," said Kurt Firnhaber, executive director of Flatirons Habitat for Humanity. "Typically we face a lot of opposition, but, in co-housing, they actually think it's a quality that adds to the community."

The units will be slightly more expensive than traditional Habitat homes, but Firnhaber said there are valuable benefits to living in supportive communities.

"Habitat and co-housing have similar community goals. It's a really good mix," he said. "If I had my way, all of our future developments would be in co-housing."

As co-housing groups make headway in bringing more income diversity to their ranks, they're also working to bring more cultures into their mix.

The Co-housing Association of the United States has scheduled its 2005 conference to be held at Morgan State University, a historically black university in Baltimore.

Association members are in talks with the schools leadership about partnering to build a multicultural co-housing community.

"The best way to get our message out to communities of color is to take it directly to them," Okner said.

HOW CO-HOUSING WORKS

Participatory process: Residents have a role in the planning and designing of the development.

Neighborhood design: Encourages a sense of community.

Private homes, common facilities: Each household has a private residence with access to all of the common facilities. The common house is designed for daily use and supplements private living areas. Other common facilities might include courtyards, children's play areas and vegetable gardens.

Resident management: Residents take responsibility for ongoing management, organizing cooperatively to meet their needs.

Nonhierarchical structure: While there are leadership roles, responsibility for decisions is shared by the community's adults.

Separate income sources: No shared community economy.

ON THE WEB

Go to http://www.cohousing.org/ for the Co-housing Association of the United States

Source: Co-housing Association of the United States