Senior Cohousing: A New Kind Of Housing For Aging Americans Starts To Catch On

To be honest, Kirk Davis "wasn't really interested at all" a couple of years ago when he first heard about the new cohousing community being planned near his Nevada City home in the Sierra foothills.

"My wife and I bought 11 acres after I retired and started building a rock cottage, and I thought I'd spend the rest if my life there," said Davis, 59, who sold his Pleasant Hill dental lab in 1999. "But my wife decided she didn't want to be so isolated, and we started going to some of the cohousing meetings. I began to see that the home we'd been planning was total isolation and that that wasn't very healthy. And I started to realize that it would be nice to have other people to share things with, like the first snow of winter."

It also helped that the proposed cohousing community, called Wolf Creek Lodge, is situated on an idyllic spot, along a wooded hillside bounded by a creek. The town of Grass Valley, with its grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants, banks and post office, is about a mile away and easily accessed via a walking and biking trail. "I fell in love with the site," said Davis, who joined the Wolf Creek Lodge project with his wife Barbara in 2006.

What is cohousing?

Cohousing is a living arrangement in which a number of privately owned homes -- usually 20 or more self-contained condos or townhouses -- are situated around a common building and shared outdoor space. The common building includes a kitchen, dining area and living room, and may also contain an office, a workshop, recreational and laundry facilities, guest rooms and play areas for children.

Cohousing developments are planned by a core group of prospective residents, who often spend months or years getting to know each other and determining whether they are a good fit for the community. These future residents also play an integral role in the design of the development, another exercise in consensus-building. Resident groups usually hire an architect and developer to handle the technical aspects of design and construction.

Before construction can begin, a core group of residents must buy their homes. The separate units in a cohousing complex typically sell at market-rate prices and can be sold at will, anytime, by the owners.

Once the project launches, residents are expected to be active in helping to foster a friendly and cooperative environment. Community members typically dine together several times a week and divide household chores. Residents are responsible for the community's on-going management and maintenance.

The design of cohousing complexes is intended to bring people together. Residences are built close to each other, and face toward the shared common areas, such as walkways, gardens and play areas, as opposed to facing a driveway or street as is often the orientation in more conventional developments.

The plan for Wolf Creek Lodge. Drawing by McCamant & Durrett Architects.

"Cohousing is designed to facilitate community," said Charles Durrett, an architect who helped bring the cohousing concept to the United States in the 1980s from Scandanavia, where it originated. "But there is a balance between personal privacy and living amidst people who know and care about each other. Cohousing residents can retreat to their own homes if they want time away from the community."

There are now about 5,000 people living in about 100 cohousing communities around the United States, and about 100 additional communities are in some stage of planning or development, according to the nonprofit Cohousing Association of the United States.

In Northern California, a cohousing mecca, communities have sprung up in Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, San Jose, San Mateo, Davis, Grass Valley and elsewhere. Most of these communities are intergenerational, with people residents of all ages and lifestages welcome.

The birth of senior cohousing

Recent years have also seen the emergence of cohousing exclusively for midlife and older adults. The first two "senior cohousing" communities -- Glacier Circle in Davis and ElderSpirit in Abingdon, Virginia -- opened in 2006, and about 25 more are under discussion.

Senior cohousing projects take into account the mobility problems that residents may have or develop, and residences are constructed along "universal design" guidelines. At the Glacier Circle community in Davis, where the average resident age is 80, there are no steps leading to front doors, and wheelchair access is provided throughout the community.

Wolf Creek Lodge, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009, is envisioned as a community of active adults ages 50 and older. The 25 residents who have signed on so far range in age from 53 to 84, with most in their 60s.

Unlike most intergenerational cohousing projects, where parking is located at the edge of the community, Wolf Creek Lodge will have underground parking and elevator access from the parking garage to the three floors above.

The lodge has no child-friendly amenities, although grandchildren are welcome and there are plans for a neighboring intergenerational cohousing community, called Wolf Creek Commons, to be built on adjoining property at a later date. One-third of the 7.9-acre property will be preserved as natural habitat.

The lodge's common building, called the "common house," will include an espresso bar, a hot tub and a computer room. The complex will also have two guest suites and a unit that could be used for a shared caregiver. The design emphasizes environmental sustainability and minimum use of toxic materials.

Wolf Creek Lodge was designed by Durrett's firm, McCamant & Durrett Architects, which has offices in Nevada City and Berkeley and has designed more than 50 cohousing communities around the country.

Cohousing isn't intended as an affordable housing solution: Units at most complexes cost about the same as conventional homes of comparable size. At Wolf Creek Lodge prices for the 30 one- and two-bedroom condominiums range from about $250,000 to nearly $500,000.

However, cohousing residents may realize some long-term cost savings through shared living arrangements and an emphasis on energy efficiency. Communities may save money, for example, when residents share one lawnmower or a set of tools.

Collective living arrangements may also enable senior cohousing communities to pool their resources and share the cost of a visiting nurse, a live-in housekeeper or a van and driver.

A sense of community and control

Although cohousing often appeals to younger families seeking playmates for their children and neighbors who can provide babysitting, its appeal may be even greater for retirees and empty-nesters hoping to live in a close-knit community whose members can look after each other as they grow older.

Research suggests that cohousing could attract many Baby Boomers, who view it as an attractive alternative to assisted living and other senior residential facilities. In a 2004 survey by the MetLife Mature Market Institute and AARP, 22 percent of respondents ages 50 to 65 said they would be interested in "building a home to share with friends that included private space and communal living areas," while half said "being in a community with family and friends" would be one of the three most important considerations in deciding where to live during retirement.

"Baby boomers are not content with what institutions have to offer," said Durrett, who wrote the 2005 book Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living. Durrett believes that boomers will flock to cohousing because it "promotes the kind of neighborhood feeling they remember from their youth. And it provides the comfort of knowing neighbors are nearby if you need help."

Cohousing also appeals to boomers because it gives them a sense of control. "Communities reach decisions by consensus rather than through a top-down hierarchy," said Durrett. "And you get to choose who you live with, rather than moving into a more traditional senior living facility where you might or might not like the other members."

Suzanne Marriott, 64, is one of many Wolf Creek Lodge members who came seeking an alternative to conventional senior communities. "Both of my parents ended up in assisted living and I don't want to end up that way," said Marriott, a retired Castro Valley schoolteacher who decided to give Wolf Creek a try in 2006, following the death of her husband. "Living in an assisted living facility would feel too institutional and isolating for me."

Potential challenges

There are, of course, challenges to living in a cohousing community. Personalities have been known to clash, and not everyone has the stomach for the group-think that develops in some communities.

There is also the question of whether residents who develop chronic illnesses or disabilities will be able to remain "aging in place" in cohousing communities, or whether they will need to relocate to nursing facilities. While cohousing communities provide a network of friends and emotional support that can be very helpful for sick or disabled residents, they are not designed to provide on-going 24-hour care for residents.

But for the future residents of Wolf Creek Lodge, the advantages of living in a communal setting far outweigh the potential drawbacks.

"I grew up in a small town, in Brentwood, and one thing that really appeals to me about cohousing is that it's kind of a 'new old-fashioned' neighborhood," said Marriott. At Wolf Creek Lodge, "I have the opportunity to meet new people and I won't be alone, and yet I'm not tied down and I can have privacy."

For more information about cohousing, see CoHousing Partners at http://www.cohousingpartners.com, McCamant & Durrett Architects at http://www.mccamant-durrett.com or the Cohousing Association of the United States at http://www.cohousing.org. Information about senior cohousing is available at http://seniorcohousing.com. For information about the Wolf Creek Lodge community, see http://www.wolfcreeklodge.org.

(This article originally appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Bay Area Summit)