Cohousing Explained: What is a home?
Resources: On-Line
General information about Co-Housing in it’s many forms:
- Tampa Cohousing Meetup Group: https://www.meetup.com/Tampa-Bay-Cohousing-Group/
- The Fellowship for Intentional Community: https://www.ic.org/
- Pocket Neighborhoods: http://pocket-neighborhoods.net/index.html
- The Cohousing Assn of the USA: http://www.cohousing.org/ many helpful pages. One on how to Market a community
- A 2004 Article on CoHousing from UUA World: http://archive.uuworld.org/2004/04/forum.html
- Shared housing: An article from the Christian Science Monitor: The sharing economy gives roommates a new image
- Cultivate Coop: A library of resources created by and for people who work in co-ops
- A comparison of Ownership Models for Co-Housing
- Cooperative Housing Toolbox (PDF) A Practical Guide (120 pages) for Cooperative Success.
- Cooperative Housing Community Development Toolbox (PDF) A Practical Guide for Successful Community Housing Development.
- Co-op Housing Project Action Plan & Resource Guide (PDF) Ideas on how to organize, start, make a co-op community. Good general advice
- What Exactly is a Kibbutz A kibbutz is voluntary co-operative, communal farm or settlement in Israel. All income and expenses are shared.
Cohousing Consultants to consider:
- Cohousing – solutions https://www.cohousing-solutions.com/about
- Ross Chapin Architects (Pocket neighborhoods) https://rosschapin.com/services/neighborhood-development/
- The Cohousing Company (Charles Durrett) : http://www.cohousingco.com/
Ecology Focused information
- Global Eco Village Network https://ecovillage.org/
- Permaculture Design Course: https://ecovillage.org/permacult
- Low Impact. org https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/cohousing
- Geothermal Energy used in a Cohousing Community From Dennis Jay
- Starting a Community Garden: U FL Extension Service
Information specific to UU Communities:
- UU Community Cooperatives Grounded in the values and tradition of Unitarian Universalism, UUCC grows intentional housing communities of spiritual practice, sustainability, and social change. It is the parent organization of Lucy Stone and Margaret Moseley UU Cooperative communities in the Boston, MA area.
- Elderspirit: East TN UU Senior Cohousing-Inspired Community. See their Goodness of fit and Participation Survey
Videos on You Tube
Alternatives to Sprawl: Alternative planning for transportation You Tube Video
A TED Talk by Grace Kim: How Cohousing Can Make us Happier (and Live Longer)
●Cohousing Project: a page with short videos on YouTube:
Existing Housing Communities
- Fair Oakes EcoCommunity in Sacramento, CA See their Mission and Values Statement See their Sustainable Design and Construction
- Our friends and “sister church” (formerly named First UUC located on Fowler Avenue near our campus), The First Church of Tampa is planning to do the same thing as us: Peace Village
- Sunnyside village Marysville, Washington https://www.sunnysidevillagecohousing.com/
- Riversong Cohousing Eugene, Oregon https://riversongcohousing.org
- Washington Commons Sacramento, California https://www.washington-commons.org/
- Gainesville Florida: https://www.gainesvillecohousing.org/ Newly opened and sold out. Some of our members have visited there in 2022. They are very helpful and encouraging to our journey.
- Lakeland, FL Harwood Village Now forming. focusing on assisted living for seniors and disabilities
- Lakeland, FL Friends and Neigbors in Lakeland. Now forming. Senior living.
- Oak Creek Community in Stillwater Ok. Their community has so much in common with ours. They started with 7+ acres and a common house that looked very much like ours, and from that they built 24 homes in a style similar to our Florida Vernacular. They have 3 video tours of their homes on line
- Oakcreek Community | Stillwater, OK – YouTube this has a site plan and drone flyover of the community
- Tour of an Oakcreek A size home – YouTube 793 sf
- Tour of an Oakcreek C size home – YouTube 1100 sf
- Tour of an Oakcreek D size home – YouTube 1190 sf
- https://www.oakcreekstillwater.com/ their main website.
- Miccosukee Land Co-op: near Tallahassee FL. http://miccosukeelandcoop.net/ 344 acres 140 members (owners of parcels of land). great resource for incorporation, management, by-laws, etc of how they run their large co-op.
- Albuquerque NM https://www.cohousingabq.org/neighborhood This site has all the documents they used to request rezoning and a planned development. It has many things in common with our project. (documents not at this site). The community was built and is successful. However there was significant public opposition that fought the rezoning and development for 2 years all the way to the NM Supreme Court. The documents of the oppositional organization are: South Valley Community Alliance
- A terrific video by Albuquerque: The beauty of Cohousing is…. https://www.cohousingabq.org/video
- Boulder, CO Silver Sage Village: https://bouldersilversage.wordpress.com/
- Elderspirit Community: Abingdon, Virginia,, Good pages on Membership steps
- Sunnyside Village: Everett WA, now forming and selling, good model for us. An attractive webpage and good video.
- Flagstaff, AZ Flagstaff Cohousing – in the development stages. Check our their membership page.
Resources: Books
Marla has copies of these books which are available to borrow and read by anyone interested in learning more about this topic.
- My House Our House: Living Far Better for Far Less in a Cooperative Household Bush, Karen M.
- Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small-Scale Community in a Large-Scale World Ross Chapin
- The Senior Cohousing Handbook: A Community Approach to Independent Living, 2nd Edition Charles Durrett
- Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities McCamant, Kathryn
- The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live 1998 by Sarah Susanka and Kira Obolensky
- Creating the Not So Big House: Insights and Ideas for the New American Home, 2002 by Sarah Susanka and Grey Crawford
Financing and Affordable Housing
This is something we need to look at. Maybe with outside financing we could afford to build a total community.
Local Links:
- Shipping Container Houses
- JPW Shipping Container Homers They build houses from Shipping Containers. In Tampa
- Tiny Houses
- Tampa Bay Tiny Homes build and convert tiny homes
- Circle Pond Community in Ruskin 12 lots to rent in small community in Ruskin
- Escape Tiny Home Village: near UUCT on 301: 10 lots for rent, must buy their tiny houses. Might be a good source for info on getting rezoning in Hillsborough county? Tiny homes classed as RV’s for financing. THs manufactured in RV factory in WI
Harmony Terrace of Tampa Bay 