One of the challenges facing environmentalists is to show us how living with less can be a better life. This will be difficult because the desire to want bigger and more is ingrained in our culture.
Housing is major arena for this debate. Our houses have gotten bigger even as our families have gotten smaller. At some point this trajectory will become unsustainable, if it hasn’t already. So is there an alternative to the current paradigm of suburbia and urban condos?
The advocates of cohousing believe a new type of sharing community is part of the solution. As with anything outside of the mainstream it is difficult to describe cohousing communities since they don’t adhere to our conventional ideas about housing and community.
The related image is of a proposed cohousing development, Dragonfly Cohousing, in Calgary. The project is currently shelved. While it looks like any other modern townhouse development there are subtle, but critical differences.
3D rendering of the proposed (but currently shelved) Dragonfly Cohousing Project in Calgary.
The development is comprised of many individual privately owned units from one-bedroom apartments to four bedroom two story walkups. The square foot cost of each unit is comparable to traditional housing. But while each unit is smaller cohousing developments have a number of shared spaces that everyone has access to. For example, with the Dragonfly project, there are a number of guest rooms that can be shared. The thinking is: it’s nice to have an extra guest bedroom, but that space is used only a few times a year when friends/family visit. With this system you have access to guest rooms when you need them just without dedicating the extra space in your personal home. There is a shared workspace. A workspace with a nice selection of tools is something that is perfectly suited to sharing as few can afford a fully stocked garage, but everyone will have a use for one. Music practice rooms, yoga studios, shared laundry, a mini movie theatre are some other features that Dragonfly Cohousing proposed to incorporate into its community. Cohousing tries to share what it makes sense to share and keep private other areas.
Originally, cohousing was developed with an emphasis on building an intergenerational community with families, young people and older adults. The children benefit from interacting with different age groups, something often lost today, while older adults benefit from having people nearby to help them with groceries or car rides. But other projects like seniors-only cohousing are becoming gaining popularity as well.
The wealthier we get the more difficult it is to sustain a sense of community because we need to rely less on each other. In some ways this can be great, but it does have costs. Cohousing is an interesting concept because it tries to bridge the gap between our modern notions of privacy and self-reliance and a more shared community based lifestyle. I’ve chosen to highlight the Dragonfly project because it balances the private and the communal aspects in tune with my personal tastes with a great contemporary design. Other projects, like the established Prairie Sky Cohousing in Calgary, will strike a different balance because each cohousing development is unique. The details determined by the members who plan and build it.
There is a local push to develop the first cohousing project in Medicine Hat. If you’d like more information on this project Donna Robinson and Betty Aiken have organized an appreciate inquiry session on cohousing in Classroom F1009 at the Medicine Hat College on Saturday, April 18 from 10.00 am to 2.30 pm. Please bring a bag lunch for yourself.