Hello!
Hope your year is off to a great start! In this newsletter we are pleased to remember the
major milestones from 2017 and are
looking forward to all the progress that will be made with communities across the country in 2018. We're also super excited to announce the start of our
webinar series to attract the next
500 Communities Class!
- Katie & Bethany, The CoHousing Solutions Team
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New York Times: "There’s Community and Consensus. But It’s No Commune."
Article by Tom Verde
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Photo of Pioneer Valley Cohousing by Matthew Cavanaugh for The New York Times
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"The heart of each community is the common house, or a space, where group meals are offered once or twice a week, together with activities and events. Houses are connected by pathways. Instead of a lawn mower in every garage, there often are no attached garages. Cars are exiled to peripheral parking areas, while a single, shared lawn mower suits the needs of everyone....
The momentum for cohousing has been growing. The National Building Museum in Washington noted the recent 'boom in cohousing communities nationwide' in a current exhibition..."
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Year in Review and Looking forward to 2018
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Appreciating Major Milestones in 2017
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Village Hearth Cohousing:
City Council
re-zoning approval, completes design workshops
(Actively looking for more members!)
Fair Oaks EcoHousing
signs construction loan, breaks ground and starts construction
(Only a few homes left!)
Spokane Cohousing
group coalesces, acquires land, and dives into architectural design/schematic workshops with McCamant & Durrett Architects
Successful National
Coho/US
Conference in Nashville, TN in May
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PDX Commons
residents enjoy each others' company on their recently completed common patio
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Fair Oaks EcoHousing
Loan Signing
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Truckee Cohousing
growing their community at a series of potlucks and other social events
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Quimper Village
during construction
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Quimper Village
construction completed!
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Spokane Cohousing
community earlier this year celebrating land purchase
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Looking forward to a great 2018
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Washington Commons in West Sacramento to start design workshops (actively looking for members to join)
Marin Cohousing received a signed Purchase Agreement for their 3 acre property in Novato, CA and will be starting design workshops with MDA in the coming months
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Washington Commons
is gaining momentum and looking for members to create the first cohousing in West Sacramento
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Harrisonburg Cohousing
members during their Celebration and Land Walk in December
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Village Hearth
has their site, drawings, and zoning approval; now to grow the community!
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Exciting to watch
Fair Oaks EcoHousing
become a reality!
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We welcome our new clients that joined in 2017!
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Marin Cohousing has land under contract!
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500 Communities Program Affiliate Spotlight: John Caye
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One of the first Cohousing
Getting-it-Built Workshops Chuck and I (Katie) gave was in Marin County, north of San Francisco in 1986. A vibrant group survived a few years before being discouraged by the difficulty and costs of developing in that area. Several groups have come and gone since then, but no cohousing has ever gotten close to being built in Marin County, one of the most expensive and difficult places to do any type of development.
In 2015,
John Caye applied to my new
500 Communities Program, a year-long training to work in cohousing development. John lives in Marin County (Novato) with his wife and two girls, and had experienced living in cohousing when they were able to rent a home at Blueberry Hill outside of Washington DC when their girls were young. Now, with a career in project management for the Air Force and then the Veterans Administration, John wanted to create such a community in his wife’s hometown of Novato. Working with Katie McCamant, John has scouted every potential property in the area, and now, after a year-and-a-half of patient work has managed (at last!) to get a
3-acre property in Novato under contract. To find out more about this property and the people behind it, see
Novato Cohousing Now.
But it wasn’t just a property search that John did. At the same time, he was
building a core group that would be ready to come up with significant money quickly if they could get a
property under contract. That is often the Catch 22 . . . people don’t want to put up money or make the emotional investment before they know the specific property, and in tight, competitive property markets that means that cohousing groups aren’t ready when there is an opportunity. But being on the ground in Marin County, and having the development background, John was able to move both the property search and core group development forward until the deal finally came together. This is an example of a project that wouldn’t happen without someone in John’s position patiently pushing it forward and finding the
unique opportunities to make something happen.
So finally,
30+ years later, it looks like there is a viable cohousing opportunity in Novato CA, and we at CoHousing Solutions are excited to help this group get it built!
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John's Testimonial on the 500 Communities Program and Working with Katie
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"Working with Katie has been hugely rewarding...equal parts inspiration, truth, motivation, challenge, fulfillment, perseverance, patience, wisdom...and great fun! At the start of any outreach, I tell everyone, clearly, we wouldn't be here and this would not be happening without Katie McCamant." -
John Caye |
marincoho.com
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About the 500 Communities Program
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Join us in February for an Introductory Webinar!
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We are gearing up to find the
2018 class for the 500 Communities Program
with
applications due in June.
Katie’s goal with this program is to create a network of cohousing professionals around the country that can work together to support the creation of more communities in their regions.
As an example, in the Marin case (see article above), while finding this property John made a lot of contacts and looked at a lot of other properties, and over the upcoming years more is likely to come out of these initial efforts. With cohousing groups focused on just getting their own communities built, they tend not to build up the knowledge and relationships that a professional looking to create a number of communities over time would.
There will be a three Introductory Webinars (just attend one) in which Katie McCamant will explain more about the program and how you can be part of it!
Three opportunities to attend an Introductory Webinar:
Wednesday, February 21 at 10am Pacific Time
Tuesday, March 6 at 11am PT
Tuesday, April 3 at 5pm PT
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Featured Cohousing Articles & Videos from 2017
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Feel free to share these with your communities and networks!
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Online Webinar, February 21 at 10:00 am (PT)
Join Katie McCamant for an Introductory Webinar on the 500 Communities Program!
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February 10, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
Spokane Cohousing
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April 20-22
Cohousing Association of the U.S.
Mark your calendars for the regional conference in Boulder! Katie will be attending this conference and giving a presentation on the 500 Communities Program.
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June 16-17
Save the Date! McCamant & Durrett Architects, SAGE Cohousing International, and Quimper Village Senior Cohousing are working together to hold a Senior Cohousing Conference in Washington Summer 2018.
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Other related events:
Online: Thursday, February 8, 12:00-1:15pm Pacific
Across the country and beyond, the sharing economy and community-driven civic engagement is big news. By following these 10 steps, you can join the buzz and capture media attention for your community project or event.
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We provide
development consulting services to help you create your sustainable neighborhood. Our team pioneered the development of cohousing in North America, and we have helped create dozens of successful communities.
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Our newest venture involves training passionate cohousing entrepreneurs through the year-long
500 Communities Program. We'll be recruiting for the next class in early 2018, with applications due June 2018.
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Architecture by McCamant & Durrett Architects
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