SAN FRANCISCO: The twin need for lower housing costs and an enhanced sense of community is driving the co-housing movement.
Unlike the usual process of a developer purchasing the land, developing it and then selling it, a co-housing project is controlled and developed by the co-housers themselves, often from beginning to end. A group forms a development company that will dissolve not long after they take possession of their condo units. At that stage, they will form a typical strata arrangement. However, unlike the average strata council, they will have access to a shared 6,500-square-foot community space and every household will make decisions by consensus.
Residents also understand that they are part of a unique community, where they will contribute to each other’s lives instead of living in isolation. Residents will likely help each other with day care, elder care and shared meals. Nobody is required to participate in such activities. But the idea is that purchasers are the sort of people who are open to helping their neighbors and creating a community, rather than living behind closed doors and barely making eye contact…
