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Cohousing & Affordability - can they coexist?


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#1 tamara.bonnemaison@gmail.com

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Posted 27 March 2021 - 12:21 PM

Cohousing is becoming more popular as the benefits of living in community receive greater recognition. Many cohousing projects have been built, or are forming on the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island (ie/ Driftwood Cohousing in North Vancouver, Ravens Crossing Cohousing in Sidney, Pacific Gardens in Nanaimo, and newly forming Victoria Urban Village). These projects generally use a private ownership, strata model, but in urban areas with high land and construction costs this results in low economic and social diversity amongst cohousing residents. It is difficult to construct cohousing projects that are suitable and affordable to families in more urban areas. 

 

This is a forum for brainstorming ideas, financing models, and ownership models that could be used to allow cohousing and affordability to coexist.



#2 Mike K.

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Posted 27 March 2021 - 07:40 PM

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#3 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 01 January 2022 - 03:45 PM

The answer he hopes to unveil by the end of 2022 is a pioneering project called Tomo House, a co-housing development in Vancouver that offers private living spaces alongside plenty of shared spaces and amenities that are designed to reduce expenses and foster a sense of community. Co-housing projects aren’t new – there are more than 40 such communities in Canada already, according to the Canadian Cohousing Network – but what makes Tomo House different is that it’s developer-driven. So instead of the aspiring homeowners paying the upfront costs of purchasing land together, hiring contractors, managing construction and navigating permit and approval processes – a cumulative workload that can defeat would-be co-housers – Mr. Shieh’s development company, Tomo Spaces, is doing the work.

 

So far, eight of the building’s 12 units have sold. The buyers have helped shape the design and decided on things like layout and shared parking spaces. Mr. Shieh and the co-housers call their development model “co-housing lite” because it makes shared housing accessible to more people. And while the cost of individual units isn’t cheaper than regular market housing, he hopes that prices will come down as more developers and home-seekers embrace the concept.

 

As more do, he thinks they’ll discover the pleasures of community living that he has experienced in his own life: His current home is in a restored Vancouver schoolhouse he developed that includes units for his sister, his mother-in-law and two other families. A shared walkway connects their backdoors, he says, and “that’s where the serendipity happens.” The families see each other and connect, he says, and act as a community. When it snowed in Vancouver this December and he was out of town, he knew he could depend on his neighbour to shovel his mother-in-law’s walk.

“That’s what we want Tomo House to be about,” he says, noting that Tomo stands for “Together, more.”

 

https://www.theglobe...a-way-to-bring/


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 January 2022 - 03:45 PM.


#4 Nparker

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Posted 01 January 2022 - 04:33 PM

...“That’s what we want Tomo House to be about,” he says, noting that Tomo stands for “Together, more.”...

He almost sold me on the idea until I read the insipid origin of the name.



#5 Moderation

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Posted 01 January 2022 - 06:42 PM

Tomo House, a co-housing development in Vancouver that offers private living spaces alongside plenty of shared spaces and amenities that are designed to reduce expenses and foster a sense of community. 

 

Sounds like an appropriate name for a co- housing. Even better if the new owner to be had input or like the name.



#6 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 01 January 2022 - 06:43 PM

Huh?

#7 Mike K.

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Posted 01 January 2022 - 06:54 PM

Imagine how much stress these people will have every time a unit is sold. Or if people start falling for each other and you’ve got couples forming, and then breaking up. Awkward.
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#8 Nparker

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Posted 01 January 2022 - 07:13 PM

Personally, I find the idea of living in a giant dorm past the age of 25 rather repulsive, but chacun à son goût.


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