Katie's Trip to Bozeman Cohousing

I had the opportunity to drive across the big open spaces of Idaho, Montana, and Utah last month, giving me lots of time to ponder big spaces and long timelines, especially seeing dinosaur footprints from 70 million years ago and rock that was at the bottom of the sea 250 million years. Gives one perspective. 

One of the trip highlights, and my only work-related stop, was visiting clients at Bozeman Cohousing. Thirty-five of the 43 households have closed, and most have moved in. The last buildings being completed include the Common House, an atrium-covered space and the eight last homes (delays are seemingly only too common in todays construction environment). And yet, despite all the difficulties (pandemic price increases, followed by interest rate increases and an ever-extending construction schedule), there they were, doing community: kids scootering along the sidewalks with no cars to endanger them, neighbors talking on porches, gathering at the picnic tables (the temporary Common House) with an astounding view of the mountains and overlooking the little stream that passes through their property. 

It’s a beautiful community, designed by cohousing architects at Studio Co+Hab (Architect Erik Bonnet was one of the community’s founding buyers) on a great 5-acre property easily accessible to most of Bozeman on a bicycle. While the community members had to give up many of their early building dreams as the pandemic and the following housing boom drove costs up (all across the county, the cost of housing has gone up 40 – 50% since 2019!), they were able to hold on to the most important things and strong energy efficiency measures.

The community also worked with the City to help underwrite the costs of several homes to make them more affordable (it was mostly community money, with just $36,000 from the City…every little bit helps). It’s especially rewarding to see a younger generation moving into this truly intergenerational community, raising another generation of kids that will grow up knowing that a small group of people can do so much working together.

By: Katie

A Flat Management Structure: Can It Really Work?

One of the things about my own community, Nevada City Cohousing, that most impresses me is our flat management structure. We are 34 attached townhomes, now living on site for 18 years. Our upkeep and management is done with a series of committees and a monthly all-resident meeting for larger discussions. Unlike the advice I give my client communities, we have rarely had a strong Coordinating Committee but generally have strong committees for finance, maintenance, landscape, pool maintenance and other core needs. 

This last year, I joined the Maintenance Committee which is in charge of organizing building maintenance, whether that is hired out or done by residents. We are blessed with the help of Robert, a retired general contractor (and friend), who we engage to help us with bigger projects like getting reroofing bids (Robert doesn’t do the work, but rather finds and vets the contractors to do the work). 

The smaller things and general coordination happens by email, on the pathways, with people picking up things as they can. An email goes out, “Can anyone help me with...?” and before you know it, someone has responded and it is done. Sometimes it takes a few reminders to, say, get the porches painted before winter rains, but mostly it gets done - sometimes during organized workdays, but also just as we go about our day. I find many people are willing to do things if they don’t have to go to a meeting about it.

One of the things we do well is appreciating all the little (and big) things people do. Val is particularly good at this, sometimes writing poetry of appreciation and other times getting right to the point like this, when Tony took on major chipping of landscape waste for our compost piles.

While I might think that I could do better with my own house, I know that is silly. I tend to think about things for months, even years, before actually getting to them. The reality is that I do much better trying to do my part within a larger community setting, with so many other smart and resourceful people to offer solutions and a hand to get things done. (You're the best, Tony!!)

Some in my own community only see what doesn’t get done (the glass half empty). We too are having the ongoing discussion about accountability and what does that look like? We have no system to track the number of hours people give to community work, and I doubt we could even come to agreement about what type of effort counts. And yet, I am constantly impressed by how much does get done, how everyone pitches in one way or another as they can, and that amazingly, without anyone “in charge” and no boss or monetary fines, we 34 households manage pretty well to keep our place maintained and a great place to live! I see the glass more than half full. 

Like our flat management structure, when I really think about it….it’s amazing that groups of strangers come together to build these communities. The new communities, who are just completing construction, are the ones that survived the pandemic, dealt with extraordinary costs increases, and still managed to get their communities built. I’ve noticed that we have a bit of a pandemic gap, the communities that didn’t get started during those tough years. While there are a batch of new communities looking to purchase land now, there are only a few that have land, and are in the early design stages. 

The development process can be exhilarating, confusing, and frustrating. You don’t have to do that in this unusual moment: you can buy one of the last homes available in these recently/soon-to-be completed communities, all of them clients of CoHousing Solutions, and move right in. 

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Celebrating the Harvest Season

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