Know whether a site is right for your community before you buy it.

Before you purchase land or invest in design, we help you determine whether the site fits your community and whether the project can succeed. At the same time, we help you plan how to get it built. Feasibility and development consulting run side by side: what we learn about the site shapes the development plan, and the plan shapes what we study. Answering these questions up front avoids costly and frustrating surprises down the road.

Who it’s for
Forming cohousing groups or housing developers evaluating a site before they buy, plus community land trusts, congregations, and landowners considering cohousing or affordable housing on land they already own.

Feasibility: what we look at

• Fit for your community: Can the site hold the community you want: the number of homes, a common house, shared outdoor space and the way you want to live together?

• Market and budget: Is there a market? Is the project financially viable? What development strategy fits the site?

• Site and zoning: zoning, utilities, noise, traffic, trees, grade and hazardous materials

• Buildings and engineering: the right home sizes and building types, soils, and preliminary civil and structural questions

• Schedule and constraints: a preliminary schedule, plus any other cost or planning hurdles

Development consulting: how we help

• Team: assembling the people your project needs

• Financing: mapping a path to fund the project

• Entitlements: planning the approvals strategy

• Next steps: guiding the project through to a design agreement

What you receive

• A Feasibility Site Plan showing how the project could fit on your land, which can be used to create preliminary pro forma

• A written feasibility study summarizing our findings on every aspect of the site, so you can decide whether to buy it and how to move forward

• Ongoing guidance as your development advisor, from the first site review to a design agreement

Ongoing development consulting
If the answer is yes, we can stay on as your development advisor. We help assemble your team, map a financing path and plan entitlements, up to a design agreement.

How it works
Feasibility and development consulting are covered by one agreement, billed on time and materials, with a monthly summary of hours so there are no surprises. The feasibility study typically takes 4–8 weeks, and development consulting continues through to a design agreement.

Turn interested people into a committed group with a plan.

More cohousing communities in North America have launched through this workshop than any other way. Led by Charles Durrett, it turns future residents from interested participants into co-developers of their own community. Your group learns how development actually works, from budget and financing to design, community building, and finding the rest of your members. You leave with a month-by-month roadmap and working committees ready to carry it out. It works with or without a site.

Who it’s for
Groups that have started meeting and are ready to get serious. Also land trusts, congregations, and developers who want future residents to be committed partners in the project.

What happens
Over two days, we work through the development process stage by stage and tailor it to your project:

• Budget and financing: what the project will cost and how to pay for it

• Design and development: how decisions get made, and when

• Community building and membership: how to grow the group and keep it working together

• Committees: who in the group takes on which work, so progress doesn’t depend on a few people

What you receive

• The complete Getting-It-Built binder, covering every aspect of developing a cohousing community

• A month-by-month roadmap for your project, from where you are now to construction

• Working committees, organized and ready to move the project forward

How it works
A two-day, in-person workshop held over a weekend in your community. It’s billed on time and materials, with a clear budget agreed on before we start.

Site Programming is the process used to arrive at the set of criteria on which the site design is based. The programming phase is where the project is built—not brick by brick, but decision by decision. This is the time when we create a common vocabulary for the project, and determine preferences and requirements to build into the overall picture before time is invested in design.

The most important purpose of the SiteProgram is to incorporate the values of the future residents, especially regarding the life between the buildings.

A thorough programming process is essential for maintaining an orderly and cost-effective design process later in the project. We have found that many problems that people encounter with the design of their cohousing communities can be avoided with a thorough programming process, otherwise known as “understanding the design problem.” We go through a detailed list of criteria, looking for program needs that translate into size, location, and other design requirements and qualities.

This programming process will allow us to consider all important issues up front, help us to understand the ramifications of our decisions and reduce the need for later backtracking and redesign. Along the way, we will be making recommendations based on past experience and professional knowledge. We then put all of the requirements of the project into a clearly organized written program that will be a reference throughout the design process.

These are the kinds of things we look at in the two-day (and two evenings if necessary) Site Design Workshop:

The Site Programming finalizes the residents’ goals and criteria for the layout of their cohousing community, which then can be turned into construction documents. The end result is a preliminary site plan that shows the location of buildings, parking, gardens, play areas, and gathering areas and an architectural “program” that documents the group’s goals and criteria for the site plan and a schematic design.

The Common House Programming Workshop establishes the goals and priorities for theCommon House, often the least understood aspect of a cohousing community.We work closely with the group to define the goals of the common house and then the specific activities to take place there. We define the design criteria for each individual space. The purpose of programming is not to design the common house, but rather to establish specific agreed-upon guidelines and criteria that will be drawn upon later as the basis for the design. Included in the workshop is the complete write-up of all decisions on which the group has reached consensus; this is somewhere around 500 decisions.

Following the programming workshop, we will develop the schematic floor plans and elevations for the Common House, based on the program, submit them to the group, and amend them once as directed, creating plans that accurately reflect the group’s decisions.

These are the kinds of things we look at during the two-day Common House Programming Workshop:

• Goals, activities, and defined spaces for the common house

• Types of activities to occur: common dinners per week, cooking, music, talking, dancing, etc.

• Ways to bring people together; places to gather

• Sustainability

• Places for people of every age

• Beauty

We draw on our experience to explain the pros and cons of all the possibilities. We conclude with a schematic Common House design that can be turned into construction documents.

In the Private House Programming Workshop, The Cohousing Company will meet with the group to start and finish the private house sizes, types, budget, energy usage, and room-by-room requirements. The group’s desires are translated into an architectural reality. The Cohousing Company will work out preliminary floor plans and meet with households to review plans and decide upon revisions. Our goal is to create the highest value home that meets the group’s goals and budget for their houses.

In this three-day Private House Workshop we will work through building floor plans, sections, and elevations to determine space dimensions, areas, and volumes, as well as sketches and site plans showing circulation, uses, and relationships of spaces.

We end with creating a list of goals, activities, and spaces for the private houses to set us up for success going into the next workshop. The final product is 4–6 house plans that can be turned into construction documents.

This workshop is where we present and explain the final schematic design to the group. We have located the buildings on the site, and adjusted the site plan accordingly. We present drawings for the building elevations that include proposed materials, front and rear porches, color schemes, and key design details for approval.

The goal of this workshop is to bring closure to the schematic design. After this step, the decisions made will not be revisited unless an outside source requires a change.

We look at material choices, landscape concepts, Code research and coordination with regulating agencies, Preliminary structural, mechanical and civil approach.

Most importantly, how any new information has affected the final design.

The final result is all of the design drawings necessary to go to the authorities for approvals and to start the base sheets for all of the professionals involved in the Design Development and construction documents.

Workshop 5

Based on an approved Schematic Design, Design Development is the process of refining and fixing the design, and working out all the details, including the selection of materials and the engineering systems. The aim of the Design Development Workshop is to finalize material design decisions before proceeding withConstruction Documents—the more detailed and expensive documents, which the city needs for project approval, and that the contractor will need to complete the project. A more detailed cost estimate may also be provided at this phase. The Design Development package will be reviewed and approved with the group before proceeding further with the project.

This 5-hour workshop goes through every proposed line item: why each one works best and fits your budget for the standard. First, we will discuss the process for the group to change those “standards,” if they want to do so. Then, we will explain the process to individualize houses, to customize each one.

Workshop 6

This 5-hour workshop with the group is where we prioritize the proposed amenities and the budget. Of course, there will be standard amenities provided in every home, but it is in the Prioritization Workshop where we determine what those are: which will be options and which will be private customizations. We begin with a detailed preparation for the workshop and follow-up priorities list. Workshop 6 results in a first draft of options, amenities, and later improvements.

Every cohousing project is unique, and the consultation services we provide are tailored to the specific goals, opportunities, and challenges of each development. Please contact us to discuss your project and learn more about how we can best serve to your consultation needs.

HEAiC Workshop

During the three sessions that comprise the HEAiC Workshop, we help the group clarify expectations and establish pre-occupation agreements that would set them up for success socially as a community.

This workshop can happen during construction and is fundamentally established to answer the question, "If it doesn't work socially—why bother?" Too many cohousing communities have failed socially in North America. This happens when early agreements, well before move-in, are not in place. Subsequent projects can profit from these initial failures that Alison describes, and while we know not to repeat previous mistakes, we actually don't know how to avoid them, and that is the purpose of this workshop. If we follow and build upon the success of others, we clear the road ahead; we set ourselves, our neighbors, and the whole community up for long-term success and enjoyment.

This single day workshop stems from over 30 years of researching, designing, and living in cohousing—but most of all, from examining the patterns associated with high-functioning cohousing communities. That translates to the nuts and bolts of what makes it possible to set a community up for success.

Each session addresses one of the three main elements that make up the foundation of a streamlining system in a community:

1. Management

2. Meals

3. Maintenance