AMERICAN COHOUSING: the FIRST FIVE YEARS Author(S): Dorit Fromm Source: Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, Vol

Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc.

AMERICAN COHOUSING: THE FIRST FIVE YEARS Author(s): Dorit Fromm Source: Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, Vol. 17, No. 2, Theme Issue: Cohousing (Summer, 2000), pp. 94-109 Published by: Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43030530 Accessed: 06-09-2018 19:32 UTC

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AMERICAN COHOUSING: THE FIRST FIVE YEARS

Dorit Fromm

American cohousing, transplanted in the early 1900s from a Danish model of private dwellings with shared common facilities , has spread across this country with 24 functioning communities by the mid-1990s. Cohousing has attracted the attention of an American audience as an alternative housing type that fosters neighboring and a sense of community. This paper is about the first five years of cohousing in America; it highlights the many issues faced by those who have tried and those who have succeeded in creating community. Data from 24 cohousing projects and a post-occupancy evaluation of three communities are discussed. The research topics explore the development process , resident turnover, site planning , functionality of the common house, and private units. The paper also gauges resident satisfaction and residents' sense of community. Looking at those pioneering years reveals that American cohousing can provide a strong sense of community. In many instances, however, the development and group processes have taken longer than expected.

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INTRODUCTION

American cohousing communities, consisting of individual households with private dwellings and shared common facilities, are surveyed from the first community built in 1991 to 1996. Data from 24 developments and a post-occupancy evaluation of three communities are discussed. The research questions explored are the development process, turnover, site planning, functionality of the common house and private units, as well as gauging resident satisfaction and "a sense of community."

A cohousing community consists of individual households with private dwellings and shared common facilities. The layout and design of the community strive to enhance social contact. Most U.S. communities have been developed with the future residents, and all are managed and maintained by residents.

The first new American cohousing development, Muir Commons, located in Davis, California, was completed in August of 1991. All the elements of European cohousing can be found at Muir Com- mons - common facilities, private dwellings, resident-structured routines, resident management, design for social contact, resident participation in the development process, and pragmatic social objectives (Vedel-Petersen, Jantzen and Ranten, 1988; McCamant and Durrett, 1988; Fromm, 1991). By mid- 1998, there were 45 cohousing communities either completed or in construction, and many more in the development process.1

Most American cohousing developments are similar to Danish cohousing in terms of site planning and function - with low-rise attached housing clustered on the site, a centrally located separate common house, and parking at the periphery of the site. American cohousing often differs from Danish and similar European cohousing in terms of the development process, financing and tenure, and overall dimensions. But they do not differ in the intentions of the residents to create, with no set ideology, a supportive living environment and a sense of community.

Following is a report - based on survey material, questionnaires, and interviews - covering 24 cohousing developments in the U.S., with a special emphasis on three communities.

DATA

Two types of data were collected in North American cohousing communities. The first, referred to as survey data, was collected with the director of the Cohousing Network, Don Lindemann, through a four-page survey sent to 24 occupied developments.3 The second, referred to as case study data, was gathered through a detailed questionnaire administered in three cohousing communities. A post-occupancy evaluation of 100 questions was developed by Graham and Saleh (1996) and conducted at Pioneer Valley (32 units) in Massachusetts. The author modified this survey and conducted similar evaluations at Puget Ridge (23 units) and Winslow (30 units), both in Washington State (the former in Seattle, and the latter on a small island nearby). Pioneer Valley and Puget Ridge were both completed in September 1994, while Winslow opened in 1992, the second cohousing community built in the U.S.

Two other sources of data were CoHousing, the Journal of the CoHousing Network and extensive open-ended conversations with residents and future residents.

The goals of these investigations were to gather statistical data on cohousing communities; to deter- mine whether residents had achieved their stated goal of "creating a sense of community" through cohousing; and, if achieved, their satisfaction with it. Because of the vagueness of the term "community," four factors were investigated, gathered from cohousing literature, that were hypothesized to create a "sense of community" for cohousing residents: the development process; site design, dwelling and common house satisfaction; amount of resident participation within the community and in the common dining; and how well residents knew, communicated, and helped each other. Another aspect

This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Thu, 06 Sep 2018 19:32:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 17:2 (Summer, 2000) 96 in determining "a sense of community" within cohousing was to compare differences between day-today life in residents' former neighborhoods with their day-to-day life in cohousing.

BACKGROUND

The U.S. has a long and colorful history of creating experimental communities, from the utopias of the 18th and 19th centuries (Hay den, 1976) to the intentional communities, numbering well over 500, of today (Fellowship of Intentional Communities, 1995). As in Europe, the general rethinking of life styles and community in the 60s and early 70s, coupled with the women's and environmental movements, have made new forms of living an attractive alternative to the "American Dream" of a single- family home on a suburban lot.

Although cousins of European cohousing, small in number, can be found across the U.S., cohousing as a movement caught hold in North America after 1988, with the publication of a book on Danish cohousing (McCamant and Durrett, 1988) and slide shows of the Danish communities.

DEVELOPMENT

Similar to the Danes, the pioneers of the first American cohousing communities were (and remain) primarily well-educated professionals with access to resources. As cohousing gained acceptance in Northern Europe, future residents have had the advantage of favorable government loans and techni- cal help. In addition, they are within an accepted tradition of working together as part of a group.

Americans eager to create cohousing are not aided by a benevolent government. Technically many groups find themselves "reinventing the wheel" as they struggle to design their community using a consensus decision-making process that, at first, seems cumbersome and time-consuming to them. The number of North American groups formed to create cohousing now number well over 200, located in every state of the U.S. and most provinces of Canada, but the path from the idea to the reality can test the most ardent believer.

A variety of methods have been tried in obtaining a site, overcoming the doubts of city agencies, receiving financing approval, and reaching group agreements. In the U.S., unlike Europe, professional consultants and developers often work with emerging core groups to reduce the financial risk and time required for development. From the survey data, almost 50% of groups hire development consultants, and another 30% work with for-profit developers or joint venture with a private developer. Only about 20% of U.S cohousing is developed by the group on their own.

Two distinct development models have emerged: the project model and the lot model (see Table l).5 In the project model of development, members meet regularly over two or more years, hire their own consultants, decide on about three different unit plans and a common house design. Core group members also recruit new members so that by the time construction has started, typically most or all of the units have been taken, and members move into the entire project when construction is completed. This development process takes, on average, four years. This "project" model of development more or less follows the Danish one, the big difference being that American groups usually put down large sums of money to secure the site and pre-development costs (McCamant, 1995). For example, the development equity raised by members of the recently completed Arcadia Cohousing, North Carolina, was $650,000, money raised before there was any guarantee that housing would be built.

Members in the project development model often mention in informal comments that they learn skills of group communication and decision-making by participating in the development process. They have a chance, for want of a better word, to "coalesce," a process in which members, by working together, switch from an individual mode of thinking to one of awareness and care of the group as a

This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Thu, 06 Sep 2018 19:32:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 17:2 (Summer, 2000) 97 whole. This process occurs before members move into the completed development, and the skills gained help residents to maintain and manage their community.

Instead of creating a "group coalescence" prior to construction - spending hundreds of hours in meetings over the location, tenure, financing, and design - American hybrids of the European models are evolving, with less financial risks and more individualized dwellings in a less time consuming process (Fromm, 1998). This is how it's done: a large site is bought and divided into, say, 26 lots, of which 24 are sold on the marketplace for the individual buyer to develop. The remaining two lots, joint property of the homeowners, will be the common house site. In this "lot" model of development, comprising about half of the developments that are occupied but still building, a development team purchases the site and sells the lots with the understanding that the purchaser will put a certain amount of money into an account to construct the common house. An explanation of cohousing and a vision of the community are provided as well. The advantages of this development process, aside from an initially lower cost for development and quicker process, is that a wider range of housing sizes and types can be built. On the negative side, overall construction time and costs can be higher because of customized units (Hanson, 1996); group connections are difficult to maintain initially as residents are preoccupied with completing their own home and have no common house; and the lack of this "group coalescence" makes financing, designing, and building the common house more difficult. This model was begun by The Commons on the Alameda in Santa Fe, New Mexico.7 These custom-built, free-standing homes average almost 2000 square feet (about twice the average of Muir and Winslow's attached housing), the common house is 3000 sf, and shared evening meals are cooked there three times a week.

Cohousing orthodoxy would raise the question of whether the lot development method might not ultimately result in a lesser sense of community. A number of sources show that it is residents' involvement in the development process that lays the foundation for the strength of community once moved in (Cronberg, 1986; McCamant and Durrett, 1988; Fromm, 1991). Although no thorough studies have been done on lot development communities - it is too soon as so few are completed - two examples can be mentioned. The Commons on the Alameda opened in September 1994, with the last lot built and completed in September 1997. Two organic meals are served in the common house each week. Resident Ellen R. Kenyer estimates that "about 35-45 people show up, that's about 50% of the community." Other lot developments don't eat together in a common house, because common facilities are not always built right away. New View in Acton, Massachusetts, has had the problem of rising development costs forcing the group to cut back on the size of the common house and delay its construction until all the homes were built. To pass judgment on these lot development communities is difficult - if residents do indeed end up using the common house less, or eating less together, is this somehow less "successful" a development or another degree of cohousing?

Another angle to the more rapid creation of cohousing communities is a "streamlined" process, spear- headed by for-profit developers. Developer Jim Leach, of the Wonderland Hill Development Com- pany, found the site and negotiated with the city of Boulder to create Nomad Cohousing on the site of the existing Nomad Theater Playhouse. By controlling the site, the design, the financing, and limiting group decision-making, this rather complicated project was completed, according to resident Zev Paiss, president of the Rocky Mountain Cohousing Association, a couple of years sooner than if the group had handled it all. Nomad was completed in November 1997, and of the 11 units built, three are for low-income residents, four for middle-income and four are market-rate units. An 800 sf common house was built as an extension to the existing Nomad Theater. River Rock Commons, Fort Collins, Colorado, and Sonora Cohousing in Tucson, Arizona, are being developed along this "streamlined" process. As Leach has helped groups develop a number of other cohousing communities, he knew from experience where to streamline the process. Whether other developers, less cued into the complexities of cohousing site planning and group dynamics, will succeed remains to be seen. The question, as described in the lot development model above, is whether the residents will ultimately feel the same degree of community that exists in "traditional" project development.

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TABLE 1. Cohousing projects in North America.

LOCATION DATE NO. OF NO. OF DEVELOPMENT OPENED A UNITS+ ACRES TYPE**

CANADA

British Columbia Cardiff Place, Victoria* 9/94 17 0.5 P Windsong Langley* 9/96 34 5 P Quayside 7/98 19 0.26 P

USA

California Berkeley Cohousing, Berkeley* 4/94 14 0.75 P Doyle Street, Emeryville* 5/92 12 0.3 P Marsh Commons, Areata 10/98 8/12 1.5 H Muir Cmmons, Davis* 8/91 26 2.8 P N Street, Davis* 9/91 13 1.5 E Western Drive, Santa Cruz 6/98 16 5 P Southside Park, Sacramento* 10/93 25 1.3 P Tierra Nueva, Oceno 1 1/98 27 4.9 P Valley Oaks Village, Chico* 6/96 28 4.75 P

Colorado Common Ground, Aspen* 6/94 21 2 P Greyrock Commons, Fort Collins* 3/97 30 16 P Harmony Village, Golden 1 1/96 27 2.5 P Highline Crossing, Littleton* 4/95 36 3.6 P Nomad, Boulder 11/97 11 1.5 P Nyland, Lafayette* 4/93 42 43 P

Florida Day star, Tallahassee 1/96 13 1.5 L

Georgia Lake Claire, Atlanta 1/96 12 1 P

Illinois Harrambee Homes, Chicago* 12/95 8 0.4 P

Massachusetts Cambridge Cohousing, Cambridge 2/98 41 1.25 P New View, Acton* 10/95 24 19 L Pine Street, Amherst* 9/94 8 5.2 P Pioneer Valley, Amherst* 9/94 32 23 P

Michigan Sunward, Ann Arbor 4/98 40 20 P

Minnesota Monterey, St. Louis Park* 1 2/94 30 2.7 P

New Mexico Commons on the Alameda, Santa Fe* 9/94 28 5.5 L

New York Ecovillage at Ithaca* 8/97 30 35 P

North Carolina Arcadia, Carrboro* 1/96 33 16.5 L Blue Heron Farm, Pittsboro 3/96 15 64 L Solterra 9/98 10/40 20 L Westwood 8/98 24 4.25 H

Oregon Higher Ground, Bend 3/96 34/38 5.3 L Trillium Hollow, Portland 6/98 29 3.6 P

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TABLE 1. Cohousing projects in North America, continued.

LOCATION DATE NO. OF NO. OF DEVELOPMENT OPENEDA UNITS+ ACRES TYPE**

Utah Wasatch Commons, Salt Lake City 1 1/98 26 4.5 P

Vermont Ten Stones, Burlington 10/94 13 88 L

Washington Puget Ridge, Seattle* 9/95 23 0.5 P Rosewind, Port Townsend 3/96 27 9 L Sharingwood, Snohomish* 6/92 17/29 38.8 L Talking Circle, Langley 12/92 8 2.5 L Vashon, Vashon Island* 5/93 13/18 13 L Winslow, Bainbridge Island* 4/92 30 4.85 P

Compiled August 1998. A Residents often move into the community over several months, sometimes over several years. In the lot development, year opened and year completed typically differ, with a number of communities still not complete. + Total units built / total units desired. **Development Types: P = Project. Site purchased as a whole and development is one project, with approximately 3 unit types. L = Lot. Design and construction on individual basis. Buyers purchase a lot within designated development and design and constuct their own homes. H = Hybrid. A subset of members develop (or construct) a module of housing at one time. E = Expanding. Homes are added one at a time and development expands to incorporate them. * Included in the survey of 24 cohousing communities.

Nonprofit developers have been reluctant to undertake the development of cohousing until there was a proven record of well-functioning projects. Ujima Place, Lawndale, Illinois, still under construction, is the first cohousing development initiated by a nonprofit housing developer that recruited par- ticipants. The nonprofit developer, Harrambee Homes, working with a for-profit housing developer and eight households, is helping to create low-income cohousing in an economically deprived area of Chicago. Ujima Place is an example of a sweat equity development, where members themselves are constructing the housing and the common house.8 Cohousing' s design influence is just beginning to be seen in nonprofit housing.

Aside from new developments, three developments have been renovations or mostly renovation with some new construction. These are Doyle Street Cohousing (a renovated factory) in Emeryville, California; Berkeley Cohousing in Berkeley, California; and Cardiff Place in Victoria, Canada. (N Street Cohousing, Davis, California, uses existing homes and Monterey Cohousing, St. Louis Park, Minnesota, is 50% renovation and 50% new construction.) In comparison with the four year average, from first group meeting to moving in, for the project development model, these renovations, on average, took a year and a half.

Another development model - the expanding community - can be seen at N Street, Davis, Califor- nia. The development was started by several members buying two neighboring homes in a typical suburban neighborhood. They and their friends began buying the houses next door and the houses across their backyards. Soon fences came down and a large commons was formed from joining individual backyards. At the moment, this group comprises 13 free-standing houses, with the downstairs of one home converted into a common house.

TENURE AND COST

Condominium ownership is the predominant tenure, making up almost 90% of U.S. cohousing tenure, in part because it is familiar to financing institutions, government agencies, lawyers, and future residents. Also, as the government does not provide much housing (unlike Northern Europe), Americans

This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Thu, 06 Sep 2018 19:32:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 17:2 (Summer, 2000) 100 have traditionally looked upon their own home as an investment for their later years.10 Cooperatives and home ownership make up the other tenure types. Nonprofit cohousing is just emerging.

Typically, cohousing costs more than a com- parable townhouse in a subdevelopment. By working with city, state, and federal agencies, some cohousing communities have units designated for very low and low-income households. Prices range from $42,000 for an attached one- bedroom unit at Common Ground, Colorado, an affordable project built with city and county subsidies, to a $420,000 four-bedroom custom- built home at New View, Massachusetts. Many cohousing communities also have rentals (from one to five renters), usually a room or a part of a larger unit. N Street, California is the only development to have a mix of 50% owners and 50% renters.

The average turnover rate for a cohousing development is just under 4% a year. About half of the communities have a turnover rate of 13 2% or less. Initially, the higher mobility of Americans in comparison to European residents - Americans move on average more often than Europeans - brought up the issue of long-term stability of the U.S. cohousing FIGURE 1. Cohousing community in Puget Ridge, Washington. developments. So far, turnover has been low in all but a few communities. Two communities have over a 5% turnover rate; the highest occurred at Winslow where 13 households have moved out in the past four years (11% turnover). Not counted, but having an impact on the community is the "shadow turnover" - reconfiguration of households due to renters, marriage break-ups, new partners, and other reasons, but in which no unit is sold. Behind the household turnover rate are many smaller disruptions and rearrangements that often remain uncounted. (For example, Winslow is at one extreme, having had 80 household changes since opening).14 Because residents know each other very well in cohousing, and often work together completing tasks, turnover and "shadow" turnover could have a greater impact than in a typical neighborhood where residents were not in daily contact with each other.

SITE DESIGN

An average U.S. cohousing development has 24 units, although they range from 8 to 42 units. The site plan clusters the housing to conserve open space. Site plans vary, the most common being housing lined along both sides of a pedestrian walk, also popular in Danish cohousing. Housing is also placed around small courtyards, around a common green, and in an inner and outer circle.

Of the three cohousing communities in the case study, Winslow' s housing is lined along a pedestrian street at a density of six units to the acre; Puget Ridge's housing is lined along a pedestrian street with several courts, at a density of nine units an acre; and Pioneer Valley has a donut-shaped layout with housing along an inner and outer circle, at a density of five units an acre (Figures 1 and 2). Each type of housing layout tried to maximize community contact as well as unit privacy.

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Open-ended conversations with residents revealed that in . the pedestrian street layout, those located at either end of the street potentially faced some loss of privacy. Living in the house at the end of a pedestrian street can be in- convenient as residents have to walk the whole length of the street to get out (unless a less public exit has been provided), findings similar to multi-story developments in Sweden (Linden, 1989). A few residents at Winslow felt their movements are on public view when walking to and from their home. Conversely some residents closest to the other end of the street, and nearest the common house hub, complained of the noise. The circle-shaped plan of Pioneer Val- ley appears to be a less successful layout with regard to resident privacy, with 60% of inner circle respondents feeling that it was hard at times to maintain their privacy. This "sandwich syndrome" design - where one side of the housing overlooks the pedestrian way and the other side, beyond the private outdoor area, faces into a common area, and/or more housing - is par- ticularly problematic for maintaining a sense of privacy because the unit is sandwiched between two

common areas.

FIGURE 2. Winslow and Pioneer Valley site Ideally, plans. no matter what kind of site plan, the common house is centrally located among the units, within view of each unit, so that residents can spot activity there from their front door and be drawn toward joining in (McCamant and Durrett, 1988). (The common house at Winslow and Puget Ridge is centrally located, whereas at Pioneer Valley it is at one end of the site.) Of the respondents, 18% at Winslow, 56% at Puget Ridge, and 52% at Pioneer Valley can see activity in the common house from near their front door.

Placing parking at the periphery of the site creates a car-free interior, allowing residents to pass by other homes and the common house on their way to and from their car, increasing social contact. In European cohousing, parking a distance from one's unit has not caused the kind of anguish that Americans voice. But almost all cohousing residents leave the car behind and walk the last 50 to 100 meters or more home.17 Several new communities veer from the typical cohousing car tenet - that residents with parking next to their unit are more likely to head straight into their homes, and therefore socializing will be reduced (McCamant and Durrett, 1988; Fromm, 1991; Hanson, 1996). Two examples are in Colorado; Greyrock Commons, with a parking space at the end of most lots (some with a two-car garage), and Harmony Village, where some parking is attached to the units, will be interesting to observe over the next five years.

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FIGURE 3. Cohousing development of Southside Park in Sacramento, California.

By locating parking at the periphery of the site, cohousing residents feel that a stronger "sense of community" in the interior of the site has been created, according to open-ended conversations with Danish and U.S. residents. But for all their sophisticated design and strong community, one result in Danish cohousing is rows of parked cars often becoming a front to the surrounding neighborhood. Some U.S. communities, such as Muir Commons, similarly ring parking towards their neighbors. There are examples of U.S. developments that are well-designed from the viewpoint of the cohousing community and the larger neighborhood. Southside Park, California, is visually connected to the neighborhood with housing lined up along the street and with parking located along an alley bisecting the site (Figure 3). Units have two porches, one facing out to the larger neighborhood in front, the other facing to the common green in the back. Puget Ridge, Washington, minimized the impact of parking by creating three parking lots, two hidden below the housing.

Environmental concerns with the concept of sustainable living has been a goal of American cohousing groups, one not always realized due to costs of alternative technologies and development difficul- ties. Typically, cohousing groups cluster units to save open space. The Puget Ridge site plan, for example, has a wild area 1/3 the perimeter of the site, ringed with trees and a seasonal pond, created for runoff water. Pioneer Valley includes passive solar energy in the orientation of the housing. Nyland has specially insulated units; other schemes use landscaping plans that require low main- tenance, recycling, and carpooling.18 The most ambitious project, Ecovillage at Ithaca, clusters 30 cohousing units on two acres of a 30 acre parcel. Units are specially insulated, have passive solar heating, separated grey and black water, and energy systems adaptable to renewable energy sources. The first cluster, completed in 1997, is one of five that together will form a model village for 500 residents on 176 acres, each cluster with its own common house. Cohousing is perceived to be an important component in sustainable living, in part because it provides an organizational framework for buying and maintaining alternative technologies and systems.

Sustainable design has a great deal to do with location near services, not necessarily building on farmland, but rather in existing metropolitan areas and at higher densities. While some cohousing

This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Thu, 06 Sep 2018 19:32:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 17:2 (Summer, 2000) 103 groups have a dream of living on acres of land, far from the city, others see cohousing as a way to improve city life. Cohousing appears to be one method of revitalizing urban neighborhoods, bringing in home-ownership and stability, plus providing a built-in sense of security for the cohousing residents. Southside Park Cohousing, Sacramento, California, is a redevelopment project and a good example of cohousing helping in the revitalization of a declining neighborhood.

The Common House

The average U.S. common house, among the 24 surveyed, is 3500 square feet, the smallest are around 1000 sf and the largest are 7000 sf. The common house includes a kitchen (averaging 370 sf) and dining area (averaging 800 sf); most have a sitting area, a guest room, children's play room, and a shared laundry. Other shared facilities can include an office, craft room, teen room, library, music room, darkroom, and garage/work room.

In order to afford to build the common house, the floor area of each unit is more compact and slightly smaller in size. The cost savings of this reduced floor area is "donated" toward the construction of the common house. The average space of the common house per household is 150 sf (ranging from 100 to 300 sf).

Daily or weekly use of the common house is, typically, a defining criterion for cohousing. Shared evening meals are provided by a rotating team of residents in all the completed communities and many of those still building. Meals typically are served about three times a week, although some communities offer meals up to five times a week. Looking at a two week period, 60% of respondents from Winslow, Puget Ridge, and Pioneer Valley ate at the common house four times or more. Only 7% did not attend a common dinner during that two week period. Scheduling conflicts accounted for almost 40% of respondents' explanation of why they had not eaten meals in the common house.19

Common house design has been a problem for American cohousing, with noise being the biggest problem. One of the first attempts at designing a common house, at Winslow, showed the many possible pitfalls to the design - noise echoing, children running in and out while parents tried to eat, poor lighting, storage problems, and a feeling of functionality instead of being home-like and warm. While residents have been fixing up the Winslow common house and adding acoustical banners, 80% of respondents still report that the common house is too noisy during common meals, and the artifi- cial lighting, acoustics, and aesthetic appeal were rated a low three on a scale of one (poor) to ten (exceptional). Common house design is improving and the common houses at two newer developments, Pioneer Valley and Puget Ridge, function well. Wood coverings, nooks, careful acoustical design, and pendant lights, with smaller sitting areas have made Pioneer Valley's common house more inviting. Nevertheless, 63% of respondents at Pioneer Valley and 33% at Puget Ridge (after acoustical banners were installed) feel it's still too noisy during common meals. Eating with 20 other families may be an inherently noisy affair.

Aside from common dining, residents go to the common house to pick up mail, socialize with neighbors, do their laundry, read the newspaper, check the bulletin board, watch videos, read, sew, and for after-school care. About half the respondents queried do their laundry at the common house; the other half mostly prefer the convenience of using their own machine at home.20

Private Units

Have Americans downscaled their private living area when moving into cohousing? The answer is, often, yes.21 Looking at the responses to the post-occupancy questionnaire, about 80% from Winslow and Puget Ridge, and over 50% from Pioneer Valley had previously lived in a detached home. Sixty- three percent of the respondents had previously lived in a three or more bedroom home. After moving into cohousing, 43% live in a three or more bedroom home, a significant space reduction. Out of a total of 85 units in the three cohousing communities surveyed, only eight are detached (at Pioneer Valley); the others are attached duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes. Reductions have also

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FIGURE 4. Nyland Cohousing in Lafayette, Colorado. occurred in private outdoor space. Comparing 24 cohousing communities, private units average from 730 sf (1-bdrm units) to 1,860 (4-bdrm units). Space reductions occur in the kitchen, dining room, hallway, and living room, as the common house has taken over some of these functions. Neverthe- less, space reductions do not reach the present day Danish cohousing averages, 650-1160 sf, which are considered too tight by American standards.

How have these Americans adjusted to living with less space? At Pioneer Valley and Puget Ridge the units, for the most part, appear adequate to respondents, but 50% of respondents at Winslow feel that their unit doesn't have adequate space. Many would like more storage space: 30% at Pioneer Valley, 42% at Puget Ridge and a higher 62% at Winslow. A one-bedroom unit at Pioneer Valley has 620 sf, while Winslow's are 580-930 sf, but Pioneer Valley's have, in addition, a full unfinished basement and attic.

Design for space and expandability requires care, as does the bigger unit design. Units that are higher than two stories and bulkier disturb a delicate balance between the size of the housing and the location, width, and amount of sun on the pedestrian pathway. Designing eaves starting at the first story with a steep pitch has helped reduce the bulk of the housing. But there are three story buildings, such as at Pioneer Valley, that tower over pedestrians and alter the pedestrian sense of scale and feeling of space. In the project development model, a group mind-set balances individual wants to a greater degree than in the "lot" development model. Developments with custom homes don't necessarily reduce the floor area to a minimum, nor do they follow the Danish layout of kitchens or sitting rooms overlooking the pedestrian path, as do "project" developed cohousing.

In designing their unit, one of the hardest tasks for American groups is agreeing on two or three unit plans (to lower construction costs), and reducing customizing (which increases the price of the housing). At Greyrock, Highline, and Harmony, all in Colorado, three basic unit types are designed, along with "additions" - 30 to 40 items that are pre-designed and pre-priced, from extra phone switches to greenhouses and front porches.

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While exterior private space is a less contentious design issue than the interior, private yard size hasn't seemed adequate to about half of respondents at Pioneer Valley and at Puget Ridge, Winslow's seemed inadequate to only one respondent. If we rank private yard space in terms of size, Pioneer Valley's range from 120-400 sf, Puget Ridge's are 300 sf and Winslow's are 440 sf. Not only are Winslow's yards larger, but the view beyond of trees makes the private space appear bigger. Fencing of private yards in cohousing is discouraged - none of the yards are fenced in Pioneer Valley, one yard is fenced at Puget Ridge, and 10% of yards are fenced at Winslow. Fencing of yards may also make a slight difference in Winslow's results.

Resident Make-up and Satisfaction

U.S. cohousing developments have a diverse mix of ages, incomes, religions, family make-up, and sexual orientations. There is not much racial or cultural diversity (Paiss, 1995). Analyzing the data survey, from 18 communities, on residents, 95% are white, with 5% minorities (mostly African- Americans, Hispanics, and Asians). Residents are often well-educated. Of the 71 respondents at Winslow, Pioneer Valley, and Puget Ridge, almost 80% had a university degree (of those, over 40% had an advanced degree). About 65% earn $30,000 a year and above, with almost 20% earning between $70,000 and $90,000 a year.23 Most had previously lived in an urban area.24 Sixty percent had prior experience in some form of cooperative living. Clearly, having experienced a cooperative lifestyle earlier in their life had left a positive impression on these respondents, a basis of comparison to the American norm, and provided them some impetus in seeking cooperative living again.

Resident satisfaction with the (project) development process in the first wave of cohousing communities is understandably low. Comments concerning the amount of time spent, burn-out, and the increased cost of housing from inception to delivery are common, as can be surmised from the Development section, page 96. But residents acquired managing skills and consensus decision- making, as well as forming relationships with other members. Interestingly, respondents at Pioneer Valley, completed in 1994, three years after Muir Commons, also had dissatisfaction with some aspects of the development process, with 75% of the respondents suggesting 5 that things could have been done differently - 25% would not allow as much customizing. 5 These findings reflect the feelings of many cohousing residents and groups. American cohousing is a product in demand, but a timely delivery process has not yet been worked out. How far the development process can be streamlined and still create strong cohousing is a debated issue.

Respondents of the post-occupancy survey said their reasons for initially joining a cohousing group were community aspects (45%), a good place to raise children (28%), with other reasons being friendship, support, simplifying their lifestyle, sharing resources, availability of meals, and the location. But the reality of living in a cohousing community was different from what they expected for about half the residents. In the open-ended response (some chose not to write in an answer), about 30% of responses at Winslow and Puget Ridge mentioned that community was better than they expected, 25% of responses mentioned more work, 25% that decision-making was time consuming and 20% had more personal responses. The disadvantages listed to living in cohousing versus a typical single family home included (ranked according to times mentioned) the difficulty of making decisions, less privacy, the time needed for cohousing tasks (and one respondent mentioned filling in for those not doing their share), less contact with family, less freedom to modify one's unit, less control of children's experience, the difficulty of ignoring people you dislike, guilt if you don't par- ticipate, and the explanation that it is "like a soap opera at times." Nevertheless, 100% of respondents felt there were advantages to living in cohousing versus the typical single family home. Advantages (ranked according to times mentioned) were community support, a good social life, a better life for children, having dinners together, working as a group, having parties, sharing resources, ecological living, personal growth, support when ill, less time alone, not having to do a lot of yardwork, and finally, making beer. Respondents ranked their overall satisfaction on a scale of one (low satisfaction) through ten (high satisfaction) with living in their cohousing community, which averaged between eight and nine.

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Community indicators such as knowing neighbors' names, conversing with them, looking after neighbors' children, asking a neighbor's help when ill, feeling secure within the community, and participating in its supervision and care, point to respondents having a much stronger "sense of community" within cohousing than in their previous neighborhood:

• Only 5% of respondents knew all or almost all of the adults by name in their previous neighborhood; about 50% knew less than a quarter. In their cohousing community, over 90% know all the adults by name, 95% know all or almost all of the children's names.

• Cohousing respondents at Puget Ridge talked with their neighbors in their previous neighborhood an average of 1.6 hours a week; after living in cohousing, neighbors talked to each other an average of 8.1 hours a week, a 400% increase. At Winslow, the increase was 370%, from 2.3 hours to 10.5 hours a week on average.

• In cohousing, almost 70% of respondents had cared for a neighbor's child (in the two week period prior to filling out the questionnaire) without being paid.

• In their previous neighborhood, only 40% of respondents would feel comfortable asking neighbors to help with tasks or errands if they were ill, whereas 100% of cohousing residents would feel comfortable doing so in their cohousing community.

• In their previous neighborhood, half the respondents felt uncomfortable letting their children play outside without adult supervision, whereas 88% of those in cohousing would feel comfortable doing so. Twenty-three percent of respondents did not feel comfortable walking at night in their neighborhood, whereas 100% of respondents feel comfortable doing so now.

• 90% are members of a work group or committee, 50% are members of more than one committee, while 20% are members of three or more committees. Respondents attended the general community meetings an average of 14 times in the past year.

Community-building requires time. Interestingly, while almost 60% of respondents spend between 0-5 hours a week in a work group or committee activity (including meetings), and 40% spend 6-10 hours at Pioneer Valley and Puget Ridge, at Winslow respondents spend, on average, 10 to 20% more time. At Puget Ridge 23% of respondents say that time alone with their families has decreased, and 60% say it has stayed the same. At Pioneer Valley 59% say their time with their families has decreased or stayed the same (38%). Only 5% of these two groups of respondents felt that time alone with their families increased. At Winslow almost 80% of respondents say that time alone with their families has decreased, the rest say it has stayed about the same.

Community building also requires patience with the way decisions are made. Interestingly, respondents at both Pioneer Valley and Puget Ridge give, on average, a good rating to their decision- making process, but at Winslow almost 40% rate the consensus process below seven on a scale of one (Low Satisfaction) to ten (High Satisfaction).

Although Winslow residents spend time in meetings, their decision-making process is not working well, which may explain in part why some residents have left. But architecture cannot be separated from community creation. Residents' lower satisfaction with their common house, and appearance of their unit probably has an influence as well, although smaller in magnitude. If an outside factor forced them to move, would residents move to another cohousing community? One hundred percent of Winslow respondents said they would, and 84% of Puget Ridge respondents agreed.

A small but determined segment of Americans thirst for community as ardently as any 18th century communitarian did. In the post-occupancy evaluation, 80% of respondents used the word "community," or words associated with the feeling of community such as "a sense of family" and "support" in describing the advantages of cohousing. "Community" is a broad and all-encompassing word,

This content downloaded from 130.64.11.153 on Thu, 06 Sep 2018 19:32:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 17:2 (Summer, 2000) 107 difficult to turn into a measuring rod for gauging success. Looking at the first five years of U.S. cohousing through neighbor's interchanges - calling out another's name, speaking one to the other (15% of respondents conversed with other residents 16 or more hours a week), watching each other's children, sitting together for a meal, taking care of each other when ill - provides the benchmarks of saying with certitude: American cohousing provides a strong "sense of community." That this community is much harder to develop than was envisioned - that, ironically, a number of future residents struggle independently from each other to develop it - that it is not very affordable, that it requires large amounts of time to maintain, that making decisions together is not as smooth as an- ticipated, that free time with one's family is not increased, and that often a sense of privacy is decreased - that is the cost. And that there are Americans willing to pay the costs demonstrates the value of community to them, and of the cohousing concept as an alternative to the "American Dream."

NOTES

1. Cohousing growth is occurring at a rapid rate. In mid- 1997, there were 17 completed cohousing communities, 9 occupied and still building.

2. Canada has two completed communities, Cardiff Place (17 units), and Windsong (34 units, the first North American cohousing community with a glass covered pedestrian street). None are known to exist in Mexico.

3. Responses were received from all 24 communities. Some did not or could not answer all the questions (occupied but still building).

4. Lisa Saleh and Tonya Graham, two graduate students, wrote the survey and distributed it at Pioneer Valley, with 32 residents completing the questionnaires, 22 of the 32 households. The author modified the survey and distributed it in Puget Ridge, with 23 residents completing the questionnaires, 21 out of 23 households, and at Winslow, where 16 residents completed the questionnaire, 14 out of 30 households.

5. A hybrid of these development models can occasionally be found in which subgroups design and/or construct a part of the community at one time, sometimes due to bank financing requiring a certain percentage of sold units before construction can proceed.

6. Including at least several future residents.

7. The 5 acre site contains 28 lots, each sold for $30,000 plus the signing by the purchaser of a promissory note for $10,000 as their share of the common house.

8. In the project development model, construction is contracted out with residents often doing some finish work themselves and almost always doing the landscaping. In- lot development, some of the custom homes have been built by the future residents, most by contractors.

9. Cohousing members shouldering the burden of "disadvantaged" members, aside from economic distribution of unit costs, has not proven to be a success in Europe (Fromm, 1991).

10. Tax exemptions favor single family homes.

11. Condominium ownership: buyer owns the dwelling plus an undivided share in the common area (PUD: buyer owns the land under their building as well). Cooperative ownership: households are in a corporation that owns the units and common areas (limited equity: restrictions on the price of re-selling their share). Percentage from 33 projects. (Pioneer Valley and Puget Ridge are held in condominium ownership, Winslow is a stock cooperative.)

12. The participatory design of cohousing requires more design time and effort, which translates into higher costs (Hanson, 1996).

13. Data were available from 11 cohousing projects. About half had been opened for two years, the other half longer, the oldest operating for 6 years, therefore the data should be assumed to be preliminary.

14. Reasons include three divorces and a number of renters. Tabulated by Winslow resident Tom Moench.

15. Danish pedestrian street average of 35 to 45 feet across from door to door is not necessarily maintained. For example, at Nyland, Colorado, there is a 60-foot-wide distance from door to door.

16. At Pioneer Valley, the very center of the inner circle is common space for the inner circle units. The sandwich syndrome also occurs at Nyland, Colorado, where some housing is lined along a pedestrian street as well as the backs of the units facing a common green.

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17. At Nyland, Colorado, five of the 42 units have garages.

18. In their previous neighborhood, respondents to the post-occupancy evaluation by Graham & Saleh owned a total of 114 cars; now their car count is at 93, an 18% reduction.

19. 10% mentioned noise, others mentioned cost, lack of organic food, eating with friends or did not answer that question.

20. At Pioneer Valley, those living closest to the common house were more likely to do the laundry there (Graham & Saleh).

21. The exceptions are some of the customized lot development projects.

22. For example, nine of 24 homes at (lot developed) New View Cohousing, Massachusetts, range between 2,200 to 3,000 sf; an average U.S cohousing unit range is 730-1860 sf.

23. Economic information was available for 38 residents.

24. Residents moving into cohousing often seek a new "lifestyle" as much as they seek housing. (One explanation for some of Winslow's turnover has been the adjustments necessary by urbanités to island life.)

25. Cost and increased time of customization has been a problem. For a discussion of Winslow Cohousing's cost increase due to customized private units, read Hanson, 1996 (page 140-141).

26. Statistics are from respondents at Winslow and Puget Ridge. Some respondents moved to Pioneer Valley from New York City, making comparisons difficult.

27. Some respondents have children that are too young to be left alone without supervision.

REFERENCES

Cronberg T (1986) Tenants' involvement in the management of social housing in the Nordic countries. Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research 3:65-87.

Fromm D (1991) Collaborative communities , cohousing , central living , and other new forms of housing with shared facilities. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Fromm D (n.d.) Cohousing. In W van Vliet (Ed.), Encyclopedia of housing. New York: Garland.

Fellowship for Intentional Community (1995) Communities Directory. Washington.

Graham T, Saleh L (1996) Post-occupancy evaluation analysis, Pioneer Valley, 3/4/96. Unpublished.

Hanson C (1996) The cohousing handbook, building a place for community. Point Roberts, WA: Hartley & Marks.

Hayden D (1976) Seven American utopias : The architecture of communitarian socialism , 1790-1975. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Linden KP (1989) The physical structure of the Swedish collective house - Support or limit the inhabitants' everyday life. In J Brech (Ed.), Neue Wohnformen in Europa , Berichte des vierten Internationalen Wohnbund-Kongresses in Hamburg. Darmstadt: Wohnbund, pp. 320-331.

McCamant K (1995) Cohousing: Neighborhoods for the 1990s. Land Development W'95.

McCamant K, Durrett C (1988) Cohousing , A contemporary approach to housing ourselves. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press (Revised edition 1994).

Paiss B (1995) The challenge of creating multicultural communities. CoHousing 8(Spring)(l).

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Vedel-Petersen F, Jantzen E, Ranten K (1988) Bofaellesskaber. Horsholm: Danish Building Research Institute SBI Rapport 187.

Additional information may be obtained by e-mailing Dorit Fromm at [email protected].

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dorit Fromm is the author of Collaborative Communities: Cohousing, Central Living, and Other New Forms of Housing with Shared Facilities, published by Van Nostrand Reinold. Ms. Fromm has written the cohousing entry for the Encyclopedia of Housing , edited by William van Vliet, Sage Publications, and is the author of many papers in the housing field that have appeared in Architectural Review, Places, Progressive Architecture, and other professional publications. Ms. Fromm was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to research new forms of housing with shared services. She is a licensed architect in Berkeley, California.

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