Notes From the Field: CHUC

Last week, Guy and I did a walk-through of CHUC: Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing. Some quick background--this is a mixed use building with ground level commercial space to become Schemata Workshop’s new home and nine residential units above. But don’t be fooled: this isn’t your average four-over-one. Nine families joined together to self-develop CHUC as a vertical, or “stacked,” neighborhood. These families wanted an urban neighborhood that reflects their goals and values. Over the course of eight years, members worked together and, through a participatory process with non-hierarchical structure and decision making, CHUC was born. 

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The saw dust settled long ago, and now the smell of freshly dried paint, and the low hum of heaters draws you through the spaces. All the units have floor to ceiling windows, but today the familiar views are hidden. The painters have sheathed the windows with craft paper to protect them from any over spray. The color of the paper lends the units a warm glow. 

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From the exterior CHUC is dressed in its Sunday best. On the 12th Ave elevation, painting and storefront installation are complete. 

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At Schemata, we're looking forward to moving into our new home later this spring!

- Roma

5th Street Commons: A Retrofit Cohousing Community

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Affordable housing in Seattle has reached crisis levels. And to be clear (since we do a lot of work in the area of subsidized housing), I’m not just talking about housing for the lowest-income households, I’m talking about non-subsidized, affordable-to-you-and-me type of housing – aka workforce housing. And for those who can afford to make housing choices and seek an intentional community-setting like cohousing, the costs can certainly be a barrier to entry.

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So it was with great wonder and interest that we toured 5th Street Commons with Ross Chapin and Karen Delucas this summer.  To quote from Ross’s website, “Fifth Street Commons is a multi-generational, intentional community of 16 households located near the center of Langley on Whidbey Island, WA. It was created through a local initiative to transform an existing apartment complex into an affordable ownership community of socially engaged residents.”

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Although Ross doesn’t call it cohousing, the one and two bedroom homes that surround the central green and Common House, certainly has the appearance of a cohousing community. In fact, I would consider this a “retrofit cohousing” community because it wasn’t purpose built, but instead an adaptation of older buildings to accommodate the intention of living collaboratively.

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Architecturally, the homes are not fancy – the existing buildings were renovated and the grounds are a work in progress, evidenced by the care of the plantings and new interventions seen throughout. The innovation is really the model by which they were able to finance the purchase of the property and renovation with no bank financing. And the cost of purchasing the individual homes: $108,000 – $140,000. This short video tells their story. We hope it catches on and that others will learn from them to create their own retrofit communities.

Cohousing in the UK

In mid-June I was invited to speak on Cohousing common house design in the UK. It was a great opportunity to visit the various different Cohousing schemes that exist in the UK, highlighting the diversity that is not as present in US Cohousing schemes. 

We visited LILAC in Leeds, which was a wonderful new build scheme with an alternative ownership model. My daughter made fast friends, visiting the community garden, and racing around the central pedestrian path. There was an ad hoc celebration for a family who had been granted amnesty, which we were able to participate in. And the community meal was divine – with members of two forming groups helping with the preparation.  Dinner was followed by a presentation on common house design, with more than four forming groups in attendance.

A visit to Laughton Lodge near Lewes in the south of England proved to be an idyllic day trip from London. The seaside town was the starting point of a trip to Laughton to visit a community founded by a deceased friend and Cohousing advocate, Sarah Berger. Laughton Lodge was formerly an old hospital for developmentally disabled people that has been adaptively refurbished to house 21 families. The grounds have been greatly improved upon, and the institutional housing has been transformed into generous residences with tall ceilings and ample daylight. The treehouse was a place for my daughter to make quick friends with other children visiting the community.

Near central London, we visited Springdale Gardens, a small cohousing scheme for six families. The flag lot was tucked behind existing row houses. The founding residents shared their struggles with the Hackney planning commission and the difficulties of trying to obtain approval for their buildings that were to be hidden behind taller and higher density housing that face the public street. The residents had very high ambitions for sustainability and achieved them using a very modern aesthetic. This community was formed quickly around the desire to build in the City; accordingly they did not benefit from a long forming process. This, along with some struggles with their contractor, left them feeling burnt out, and the level of conviviality was lower than other communities visited. However, the residents with whom we met held high aspirations for future community-building endeavors.

Finally we went to Lancaster Cohousing, the location of the seminar at which I was invited to present. This was built along a linear stretch of the Lune River and had the most ideal siting for solar strategies. The community achieved a high level of sustainable construction. Their common house was well considered - their architect had been given my common house design book as a resource during the design phase. Their community had meals several times a week, and a Daily Diners club ensured that there were meals on the other days for those who wished to participate.

In addition to visiting these communities, I visited with many other nascent cohousers who were forming their communities - from Hackney to Brighton and other suburbs of London. They all had a great optimism for their projects and an idealistic enthusiasm to change their lives and change the world by building community. It gave me great inspiration to return home to finish out the last remaining months of our own construction on a truly urban Cohousing scheme in a very dense neighborhood of Seattle.

Grace Kim is a founding principal of Schemata Workshop and the author of a book on Cohousing common house design.

Park(ing) Day and Urban Agriculture

 

Schemata Workshop has participated in National Park(ing) Day for the past three years. We continue to participate in this national event because it is a fun and creative way to engage our community about public space and the entitlements we currently give cars.  For one day we demonstrate what our city could look like if we transformed even a small number of our parking spots into public space.  We chose our theme this year because we believe Urban Agriculture has a place in our city and we are in the process of designing a Cohousing Project for our current office location that will include a Rooftop Farm. (http://www.schemataworkshop.com/work/on-the-boards/urban-cohousing/)

Urban Agriculture provides resilience to our food system by diversifying where our food comes from.  Local economies will grow and expand when urban farmers begin to succeed in the city.  City farms improve our environment with increased biodiversity and often utilize innovative farming techniques that use less water and fertilizers. Urban Agriculture and Farms fosters community by providing space to host farm dinners, inspire community kitchens, and teach young and old about their food.

This year, as in past years, our Park(ing) spot received enthusiastic community support.  We had folks stop by who were out on a ‘tour’ of all the parking spots in the city, but we had many others who were just walking by and decided to sit and stay for a conversation about anything from the weather, to the state of the economy. The local preschool came by for milk and cookies and decorated the sidewalk with imaginative art. We also had five chickens (owned by a Schemata staffer), that were a hit, not only with the kids but with adults who wanted to know more about getting their own urban chickens. Overall, it was an exciting day and we all got to know our neighbors a little better while having some inspiring conversations about the future of our city.

Thank you again to Scratch Deli, Ragen & Associates, and Amaranth Farms for partnering to make this a fun and engaging event! Also a shout out to Sugar Bakery for bringing cookies, music, and the party with your mobile Park(ing) Day Party and Portage Bay Grange for leasing us straw bales.

Our awesome Partners, check them out!

www.ragenassociates.com www.amaranthurbanfarm.com www.yelp.com/biz/scratch-deli-seattle www.sugarbakerycafe.com http://portagebaygrange.vpweb.com/Home.html

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Chicken laid an egg just for Park(ing) Day.

Friends and neighbors stopped by for great conversation.

Sugar Bakery stopped by with tricked out bikes that brought music and cookies! Fun.

Local preschoolers hope the chickens will lay another egg.

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Highlights from 2012 Cohousing Conference

Last week over 350 people convened in downtown Oakland to talk about living community.  The National Cohousing Conference drew over interest from across the US and into British Columbia as well as 6 international countries (South Africa, Japan, Finland, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom).

As a long time attendee of the conference, I have worn many hats over the years (architect, presenter, board member, forming community member) which has informed the sessions I’ve attended.  While I left the board in December, I found myself following my passions in bringing affordable housing to this movement and participating as a member of a forming group.  Here are the highlights.

Swans Market Cohousing

Berkeley, Temescal Creek, Pleasant Hill, Doyle Street

I started off the conference with my favorite preconference activity – a bus tour of 4 cohousing communities.  While I have been on many a bus tour, this one stood out in the variety of the physical structures.  The first community was Swan’s Market – an adaptive reuse of a historic market in downtown Oakland.  This is a very urban mixed use site covering an entire city block – other uses within the historic building include retail at the street level, a children’s art museum, and a separate affordable housing community.  The next was Pleasant Hill – a traditional cohousing community built from scratch.  The third community was Temescal Creek – a retrofit community in Oakland.  Two existing buildings were purchased and backyards connected to accommodate a community, over time adjacent homes were purchased and incorporated into the community.  And the final stop was Berkeley Cohousing – a retrofit community formed around a farmhouse and few older structures with some new construction.  This community was formed to address a need for affordable housing in Berkeley and is a limited equity condominium model.

Friday morning was the Roundtable on Affordable (Co)housing.  This was a session that I helped coordinate with Katie McCamant and Betsy Morris to bring together affordable housing developers, bankers, and lawyers to discuss the perceived barriers to adopting principles of cohousing into their affordable housing projects.  There was general support of the idea and key discussions about developing partnerships and using language that was familiar to the affordable housing funders.

Friday afternoon I gave a ½ day workshop on Designing the Cohousing Common House, sharing best practices and design principles.

That evening was a fabulous opening keynote address by John Robbins – son of ice cream mogul (Baskin & Robbins).  He shared personal story about giving up his father’s legacy and fortune to live and more authentic life – his heartfelt stories were filled with love and its transformative power.

Saturday was the first official day of the conference.  It started off with an address by Katie McCamant – conference chair, but also matriarch of American Cohousing – she and her husband Chuck Durrett are the architects who introduced the idea of cohousing to the United States in the late 1980’s.

The first session I attended was the one I was moderating on Partnerships with Community Land Trusts.  It was a packed room of people from across the country who wanted to learn how CLTs might help bring affordable units to their forming communities.  Presenters were Dev Goetschius (Founding Board member of the CLT Network and Executive Director of the Housing Land Trust of Sonoma County), Hank Obermayer (Board Member of Northern California Land Trust and founding member of Mariposa Grove Cohousing), and Crystal Fisher (Sales Manager  for Community Home Trust that has 7 homes at Pacifica Cohousing).

session on Community Land Trusts

In the afternoon, I attended another packed room session on affordable cohousing – a report from the task force that I helped to establish 2 years ago.  While some progress has been made on the front of the Association, an exciting development was the formation of a new non-profit organization called Partnerships for Affordable Cohousing.

The day concluded with the Dinner and Live Auction – a major fundraiser for the Cohousing Association of the US, who puts on the national conference.  It was a successful evening.  And a Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Katie and Chuck – so deserving!

Much later, after the after-party, about a dozen people convened in the hotel lobby bar to listen to a wonderful pianist amongst our ranks…in the usual cohousing fashion it turned into a memorable late night of songs, skits, dancing, spoken word and community.  This impromptu gathering was probably the highlight of the conference.

Sunday was a fabulous session with Laird Schaub on delegating work to committees and developing clear mandates for them to enable proposals to quickly be adopted by communities in their plenary sessions.  And I wasn’t able to attend, but heard that Janelle Orsi and Cynthia Hawley presented some great materials about legal aspects of cohousing.  They provided free copies of a Legal Toolkit – which was exactly what my community needed at this moment.

Sadly, it was announced earlier in the day that there would be no conference next year and the next one will take place in 2014.  While my report might sound like all work – there were many opportunities to catch up with friends from across the country and make new friends across the continents.  I was also proud to have Kimberly Scaia from my community – Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing attending the conference with me.  She represented us well and helped out as a volunteer to the Association.  We had the chance to share meals and late night talks. All of these conversations and memories will fuel my community fire until the conference convenes again in 2014.