Brooklyn Co-Housing Lands in Greenwood Heights

To all those who still do not know:

Cohousing does not equal "communal dining" per se. You have your own home, your own kitchen, your own space for goodness sake. It is not a commune! It's a coop. For all I know the structure could even be "condo".

You have the OPTION to dine with the group in a real big dining room where people can prepare meals in a much more efficient way. It's like those condo complexes in the suburbs that have "rec centers". Usually, the rec center has a cooking facility (often small) so you can use the space for catered events. In the case with cohousing, the idea is to have a larger kitchen so big group meals can be prepared certain nights of the week or on weekends. I think it would be great to know that at 11AM on a Sunday, you can pad downstairs without having to get all made up and have a leisurely brunch that you don't have to prepare.

And, when maybe you're feeling creative or full of energy, you can make 48 muffins and know there are appreciative neighbors who will eat them and nothing will go to waste.

Frankly, two or three people getting together and cooking for a big group is a LOT easier than MOM having to figure out what to cook EVERY NIGHT nearly 365 days out of the year. Sometimes you need a break. I would have loved to have had a group dining choice. Many nights you DON'T feel like cooking. And what happens when you're working late and your kids aren't 13 years old yet? You know you and your kids (or you kids alone if you actually can stop being MOM for one night once in a while) are getting a great meal with people you can trust.

Yes, it is basically like a much more involved co-op apartment house, but with LOTS more services, outdoor space, facilities, a sense of belonging, safety and security (safety is knowing neighbors, not metal gates and locks).

My only misgiving with the spot is that it's right on the Prospect and a bus line (although the bus line may be a convenient one). At least the back "inside facade" faces south so a lot of the glass space will be open to the quiet side.

I don't know if this would be "right" for us, but frankly it might. We'll think about it. I would miss Fort Greene and all the convenient mass transit options and the prettiness of our Village...and despite some of the things being talked about on that other thread that gives Rosie Perez exposure, I have to say, yes it has changed, but so has NYC. Fort Greene is, no, not the place it was before...but I can live with that. Some of the underlying issues are huge American economic justice/"race"/societal and cultural issues that are not instrinsic to Fort Greene.

I cannot tell from the cohousing website or from the drawing/map if the group will have that very large open area that continues down the street (behind the fencing). I have a feeling that is a separate lot that they will not be buying.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Posted by: BrooklynGreene at May 4, 2009 2:46 PM

No, Sam, it's not "kitchen duty". You participate if you want to or you don't if you don't want to. At least that's the routine at the cohousing complex a friend of ours lives in. She's retired and she loves it. She happens to choose to cook a lot and loves it and living alone before she just was losing her incentive, joie de vivre and was barely cooking and not eating decently. This is what can often happen to people living on their own. Eating is a communal experience and for many, food loses its interest when you're all by yourself.

She has blossomed since she's been livng there and she actually has lots of time on her hands of course so the couples who have kids where both parents are working actually benefit from her being able to do more cooking for the group meals. Again, she loves doing this.

She also knows that she has very caring neighbors who look out for her and her health. When you get older, so many people live alone or with a husband/wife/partner is may be aging or out of it. Just how it goes...growing old ain't for sissies (Bette Davis? I can't remember). Anyway, just to know you have people you can rely on is a wonderful thing! Living in nameless apartment buildings where you barely know your neighbors is less and less appealing as you grow older. You kind of like knowing there's that young couple next door, that someone can drive you to the ER or at least come with you (sometimes you just don't have convenient hospitals around the country so you actually rely on neighbors or family to get you to the ER).

If you have a cat or dog or lots of plants, it is nice to know someone can handle these things, can get your mail for you.

It's that community you just don't usually have in this society.

Posted by: BrooklynGreene at May 4, 2009 3:06 PM

It's maybe more like co-op building meets "Village"/"Small Town America" (whatever *that* is!) :-)

It's kind of too bad that in NYC, with the cost of real estate, it is harder to work in more affordable units or rental units or even rent-to-own.

Some cohousing set-ups in Europe actually have managed to work in all sorts of residents in an existing city block: home owners, renters, apartment owners--and brought in new renters. There's an American cohousing community that had long time planner/member who uses a wheelchair and has fixed income that prevented him from ever getting a mortgage. The group financed his unit! A WONDERFUL story and if I could find the link, I'd post it. It was in the Cohousing Magazine last year I think.

This JUST doesn't happen in the "real world".

I read the comments from so many of you all the time and my heart bleeds a little. I empathize with all of you who cannot afford the crazy prices in Brooklyn. Wouldn't it be great if you could rent-to-own? And even if you could afford the monthly mtg/interest payments, where is that downpayment going to come from?

How wonderful would that be: rent-to-own?!!!

Posted by: BrooklynGreene at May 4, 2009 3:46 PM

Gee Man, I agree...

But, oh how I wish a sick toddler and 58 cupcakes needed for tomorrow morning could be the worse case scenario. But life would be so bland.

Posted by: BrooklynGreene at May 4, 2009 5:30 PM