Cohousing can be more expensive than traditional housing because of the unique neighborhood style built from the ground up, but the Northern California town of Auburn is looking at cohousing as a way to make housing more affordable.

Since the November ground breaking of the Jamaica Plain Cohousing project in Boston, all but one of the more than two dozen homes are sold and homeowners are busy designing unique social structures to support lifestyles in the special development.

And in Boulder, CO the Andersons believe the cohousing way of life is the village that will help raise their child.

"We chose cohousing because community was lacking in our previous homes and we wanted our son to have children to play with right in the neighborhood," said Cherry Anderson, 31, whose 15-month-old son Jasper and husband Aaron Brockett will soon be moving into the Wild Sage Cohousing community, a 34-household cohousing neighborhood in Boulder, CO.

"It was important to us that there were other caring adults who could help watch and mentor my child as he grew up," she added.

Cohousing, a neighborhood planned by those who live there, represents only a tiny fraction of the households in the nation, but the lifestyle may be gaining new respectability based on the growing number of cohousing neighborhoods in the nation.

The number of completed cohousing projects in America has grown from 27 in 1998 to 64 in 2003, representing a 12 percent average annual growth rate, according to the Cohousing Association of the United States.

"Cohousing has shown an especially impressive growth rate given that in this innovative form of housing, residents are actively involved with the professional development team," says Zev Paiss, former executive director of The Cohousing Network, the predecessor to the cohousing association.

Originated in Denmark in the late 1960s, and spread to North America in the late 1980s, cohousing is under development in more than a hundred locations in the United States and Canada.

Cohousing is a collaborative approach to housing, typically comprised of private dwellings with their own kitchen, living room, dining room, etc., but also extensive common facilities. The common house may include a large dining room, kitchen, lounges, conference rooms, recreation facilities, library, workshops, and space for kids. The community space encourages social activities and community events from meals and meetings to games and parties.

Along with the developer's input, cohousing is typically designed and managed by the residents and contains 20 to 30 single-family homes or town homes along a street or clustered around a courtyard and community facilities.

The developments also often seek to build and live the sustainable, green, environmentally sound lifestyle steeped in conservation and holism and often operate somewhat like an Old World village or a New World colonial settlement -- with modern-day facilities and concerns, of course.

Cohousing is not the kind of neighborhood for the fiercely independent with a penchant for personal space 24-7 and even flexible people have to adjust to group living, but there are many benefits.

"I appreciate how rarely I need to get in a car to take my kids across town for a play date. I also like having the choice of eating with my family at home or joining my neighbors in a shared home-cooked meal in our Common House," says Wild Sage resident Chris Hauck, 42, who moved his family to Boulder from Dallas to live in cohousing.

"This is a great lifestyle," he said.

Cohousing developments can be structured like equity cooperatives, condos or planned unit developments and a few contain rental units, but the homes can cost more than homes in traditional neighborhoods.

That's because most contain new homes and the owners share the cost and upkeep of developing and maintaining extensive common facilities in a custom-built neighborhood designed to the specifications of the residents.

In Auburn, CA planners hope the use of attached town homes will keep costs down.

The association says there is also a tendency among cohousing groups to over customize private homes raising the costs for all. Building "green" can also add to costs.

Cohousing is not for anyone who doesn't first carefully consider all the limits, options, and benefits before signing on to move in.

Published: June 25, 2004

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.