Brooklyn Co-Housing Moving Closer to Reality?

It’s also a matter of intent. You buy into a condo/co-op because you want a place to live and you hope you get along with your co-owners. It’s your space that’s primary, the common amenities a plus.

A co-house is intentionally setup by a group of like-minded persons who want more social interaction than casual meetings in the lobby, the pool or at board meetings. And there’s a difference between access to a kitchen and regularly scheduled meals. Whether this intention will maintain after a few turn-overs is the $64 question.

Also, large co-ops/condos with amenities are not all that common outside NY area, unless they’re in resorts. Co-housing started as a suburban answer to isolated living.

I always find the comments sections for articles like this rather amusing. People who simply have no idea what they are talking about, and who would never be interested in living cooperatively anyway, end up dominating the conversation. And really only do it so that they can see their own words in pixels. (the cyber equivalent of hearing the sound of their own voices)

Yes… we get it… you don’t want to share a frikkin’ kitchen with someone else. You don’t have to, and in fact, you’re not invited. Please, stay in your isolated apartment and your isolated life, and leave the few of us who want to at least TRY cooperating with the other humans alone. You can do anything you want at any time you want without having to ask for permission or explaining your actions to anyone else. Good for you! Go for it. We wish you all the best. Enjoy…

I’ve lived in two “intentional communities” and I can say that they are not for everyone. I lived for 4 years at Ganas, mentioned elsewhere in the comments here, and for 4 years in the Kerista community in San Francisco. That particular community WAS the epitome of the classic “hippie commune” and I wouldn’t trade my time and experience there for anybody’s one-bedroom upper east side walk-up. I’ve visited, known people from, read about and discussed dozens of other communities around the world, and it is actually a lifestyle on the rise at this point in time. Again, it’s not for everybody, and the haters are perfectly welcome to keep to themselves.

Co-housing, like what this article discusses, is nowhere near as intense as living in a “commune” or some other forms of cooperative living. Co-housing, like any other lifestyle, is not for everybody. How many times does that need to be said? I know that the detractors understand this, but again, their purpose for making comments about an article like this one is simply to see their own words and get some kind of reaction. People with a need to get attention like this tend to not do well in community.

We live in a world wracked by violence, warming up as we burn what’s left of the fossil fuels available, polluted by the packaging that we discard from the cheap plastic crap that we don’t really need anyway, and overpopulated by billions of people, most of who would love nothing more than to live MY lower middle class lifestyle. Something’s gonna give, and it’s gonna give way REAL soon.

People who are open to and able to live with and cooperate with other humans may actually have a place to thrive in the next generation. All the isolated “individualists” who are more concerned with not having a spot of mustard on the kitchen counter than they are with actually connecting with real, live, breathing human beings may find it increasingly difficult to thrive on this sweet little planet of ours once the shit really hits the fan. Unless they are fabulously wealthy. But then I suspect that those types aren’t too concerned about the future anyway. It’s more fun to spend one’s time being snarky on internet discussion forums than it is to actually try and do something positive and useful.

Right?

I live in Ulster County (2 hours north of NYC). There is a 10-year-old cohousing community (16 households) in Saugerties, and one in the planning stages in Rosendale. I have been the listing real estate agent for resales of two of the Saugerties cohousing houses, so I can tell you how the system works.

Use of the common facilities is completely optional. There are meals (in this case, not vegetarian) offered a few times a week, which members can avail themselves of or not. The kitchen is cleaned very well after each meal by teams of neighbors who sign up for that duty. Otherwise, the common house has laundry facilities (for those who prefer not to have laundry in their own houses — but again, not required), a fun rec area where the kids hang out on rainy days, or where adults have fitness classes or other meetings. It’s also available for birthday parties and other gatherings. There’s a “library” room with books and a piano available, as well.

Gardens on the property are available for members to use to grow flowers or food. Garden equipment is stored in a common shed. If you need a wheelbarrow or a shovel, for instance, you just take it and return it when you’re done.

One drawback (in my opinion) is meetings — there are a lot of them, as decisions about finances, maintenance, expansion, new members, etc., are made by consensus. However, I know at least a couple of members who get sick of the meetings and opt out for many of the less crucial ones. They aren’t penalized, and they try to do their share of community work in other ways.

Interestingly, a few people in the Saugerties cohousing community came upstate from Brooklyn. I’ve observed that there also seems to be something of a Quaker orientation to the members of the community (though the community includes Jewish members and those of other religious persuasions as well).

Finally, both the transactions I was involved in, which took place late this spring, were multiple offer situations, which was surprising to me. The rest of the market was moribund, but cohousing was holding up very, very well. I guess the people who want this lifestyle really want it, even if they have to pay a premium for it.

Prodigal Son – please read Analise post –

” I can confirm that each unit will have its own kitchen, bathroom, etc…..And access to great common space including courtyards, common hall, a restaurant-scale kitchen for special events (yes, with commercial dishwasher), workshops, bike racks, etc”

So yes – how is this different then a Condo that has (or could have) a common hall, common kitchen for special events etc……

“community rooms” (for many purposes) are all the rage in new condos –