Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

February 21, 2008 issue

Co-Housing: Learn About a New Kind of Neighborhood Saturday

Story by Corinne Saunders

Lynnwood Brown grew up around Boone and Blowing Rock and was at the forefront of developing a new neighborhood style called co-housing that is swiftly spreading across the United States. Brown will give a presentation on co-housing at the Watauga County Library on Saturday, February 23, at 3:00 p.m.

A style of development that first became popular in Scandinavia, co-housing came to the United States in the 1990s. “It’s basically a neighborhood with some community elements built into it,” Brown said. “It addresses the middle ground between families and society at large that used to be served by local communities,” he added. “It kind of corresponds to small clans in Native American society.”

Brown is uniquely qualified to discuss the subject of co-housing. When he went to New Mexico to earn a master’s degree in community and regional planning, he intended to return to the High Country after earning his degree, but ended up founding a co-housing community in Santa Fe where he lived for 16 years. The Santa Fe community is one of the longest-running co-housing communities in North America.

Its 28 households on 4.5 acres contributed to a high “conversations per acre” ratio and strong bonds between neighbors, he said.

“We had a lot going on between us; we knew how to call on each other for projects,” Brown said. And that collaboration extended to transportation. He and his wife decided to have only one car between them while living in Santa Fe. “If the rare occasion would come up where we both needed to be somewhere at the same time, there were always several people around I could ask to borrow their car,” Brown said.

Co-housing developments are combinations of one- and two-story housing that can include both townhouses single-family houses. The neighborhoods are home to families with children, single people and retired seniors. Some residents own their homes and some rent. The development includes shared yard space and a common building.

Co-housing members perform the grounds maintenance themselves, an activity that strengthens social bonds, he added.

Cars are typically parked on the perimeter of the development, ensuring that the common yard where children play is free from traffic worries. The walk home from the common provides additional opportunities for chance social interaction, Brown said.

A common mail area—conducive to “mail bonding”—and community meals are also are typical of co-housing.

“One of the most common practices is having some schedule of regular meals,” Brown said. “That gives people an opportunity to interact, but doesn’t force it. It’s there if you want it.”

A chef picks the menu and posts it; interested people check off their names and come. A dinner crew of four people or so will help with the cooking in the commercial-scale kitchen, Brown said.

Each house has its own kitchen and dining space, but cooking and sharing meals in the community building offer an opportunity for casual face-to-face interactions with neighbors without having to make plans beforehand.

Sustainability is generally a top priority in co-housing developments, and community members often install photovoltaic systems, wind energy, water-saving technologies or super-insulation—insulation beyond code that is more cost effective for heating purposes.

“A conventional developer will rarely make that investment [in eco-friendly sustainable systems], not knowing if the future buyers are willing to pay 10 percent more,” Brown said. In addition, he said, “Biofuel heating might not be cost effective for a single home, but a co-housing neighborhood could use it. Community is the secret ingredient to sustainability.”

The compact design of residential buildings, safe pedestrian space and the use of sustainable energy practices contribute to a development that does not detract as much from the environment as typical, freestanding residences, Brown explained.

At the time the neighborhood in Santa Fe was built, only two other co-housing communities existed in the country. Now the United States has 200 co-housing neighborhoods, and half a dozen of them are in North Carolina.

Brown, his wife and their two young sons have moved back to the area with the intention of starting a co-housing development in Boone.

“We decided to come back here to be with my aging mother and because we were excited about some of the schooling opportunities here,” Brown said. “[Co-housing] is the way we want to live; this is the way we want to raise our family,” Brown added.

Co-housing neighborhoods comply with many Smart Growth principles that the members of the Boone Town Council are taking steps to implement.

“It’s about getting the car under control, creating pedestrian space [and] creating social space,” Brown said. “It is a fairly compact compound, partly because you need to do that to create social space.”

Additionally, residents can play an active role in the neighborhood’s design. “Unique opportunities are presented by designing whole neighborhoods at once,” Brown said.

The development in Boone may not be quite as compact as the 4.5-acre development in Santa Fe.

“Thirty units on six or seven acres is very doable and can create a rich environment,” Brown said. “We could cluster the development to preserve the most open space.”

Co-housing averages 100 people per development, what Brown calls the “social critical mass,” a group small enough so you can know everyone, but large enough so you don’t have to be friends with everyone.

Unlike the religious and philosophical communities of the 1960s and ‘70s, co-housing members do not necessarily have a unified theological or intellectual perspective. Co-housing merely provides opportunities for people to get to know their neighbors, making for a different type of community, Brown said. “It’s not an inwardly focused community; it’s also very much about helping to create community within the larger community,” he added.

His presentation at the library on Saturday will cover the co-housing development process, trends, building styles, how it works and how people can become involved with it.

Those who are interested in being a part of the co-housing development and those who are interested in what co-housing might bring to the larger community are encouraged to attend his presentation.

“[Co-housing] serves as a resource for the larger community,” Brown said. “[The co-housing development in Santa Fe] became a major meeting place because we had the space to do it.

Brown has already been looking at properties locally, but wants to gauge the size of the group before choosing the land to determine the best-sized space for the community, he said. The most desirable location would be within the town limits or the extraterritorial jurisdiction—somewhere allowing the neighborhood to connect to the town sewer system, he said.

“We’re pretty much committed to do this over the next couple years,” Brown said. “If we could find the right piece of property in the spring or summer…the first people could be moving in fall of next year,” he said.

“I’m bringing my experience as a planner [to the project] but also my knowledge of things that work,” he said.

 

Want To Go?

Date: Saturday, February 23
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Location: Watauga County Library
Cost: Free