By Terri Rimmer
Once a 1960s trend, co-housing communities offer an eco-friendly alternative to suburbia and are making a comeback.
According to co-housing.org, Vermont has a long tradition of village settlements – close-knit communities shaped by a shared sense of destiny and geography.
The site states that during the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s the state was home to a number of well-known, if not infamous, communes.
“The long-term impact of that influx is still being debated, but the newcomers of 30 years ago brought with them a set of ideals that has helped to shape a growing sentiment among native Vermonters that is farmland, ridgelines, and basic way of life,” the site states.
Today, this communard ideal is echoed by the co-housing movement that has slowly taken root in three Vermont communities with at least two more on the way.
Billed as the eco-friendly alternative to the traditional suburban development, co-housing units are generally constructed with green building materials around a central open area, share a common house for community meals and other activities, and are designed so that people can depend on another for childcare and elder care among other day-to-day necessities.
Ten years ago, a group of families developed Ten Stones, an intentional co-housing community on 88 acres in Charlotte, and five years ago a group of families bought two adjacent farms in Hartland, totaling 260 acres, and formed Cobb Hill Co-housing.
According to tenstones.com, Champlain Valley Co-housing is in the process of building the first of several connected units in Charlotte on 125 acres of land, and expects the first residents to move in sometime in the spring.
Two other co-housing groups, one in Burlington and one in Montpelier, have yet to break ground, but Burlington’s group expects to begin building in March.
In each of these co-housing communities, the homes are built as either connected units, or close together, on only a small portion of the total land.
Nationally, there are 165 active co-housing communities, according to the Co-housing Association of the U.S.
The Association says that the impact of co-housing communities may be less obvious than communes, mainly because their residents see themselves, in many respects, as member of the local society as much as they are of their own planned community.
In the case of Cobb Hill, that means opening up hundreds of acres of land to local hikers, skiers, and snowmobilers and having their kids attend local public schools.
In Charlotte, members of the Champlain Valley Co-housing group meet weekly at the Charlotte Senior Center and families are already sending their kids to the Charlotte public school.
In Burlington, the co-housing project will fill in an open parcel of land that is currently surrounded by homes.
“I believe we were meant to live in tribes,” said Larilee Suitor, one of the first members of the Champlain Valley Co-housing group in a recent article.
Kelly and Rick Devine, who have two children, moved to Burlington from Plymouth, MA, after looking at other co-housing communities in the planning stages in New England.
And, there were the people to consider.
Their son, a first grade, is already attending Charlotte schools and their house is already under construction.
Source: co-housing.org
.
Once a 1960s trend, co-housing communities offer an eco-friendly alternative to suburbia and are making a comeback.
According to co-housing.org, Vermont has a long tradition of village settlements – close-knit communities shaped by a shared sense of destiny and geography.
The site states that during the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s the state was home to a number of well-known, if not infamous, communes.
“The long-term impact of that influx is still being debated, but the newcomers of 30 years ago brought with them a set of ideals that has helped to shape a growing sentiment among native Vermonters that is farmland, ridgelines, and basic way of life,” the site states.
Today, this communard ideal is echoed by the co-housing movement that has slowly taken root in three Vermont communities with at least two more on the way.
Billed as the eco-friendly alternative to the traditional suburban development, co-housing units are generally constructed with green building materials around a central open area, share a common house for community meals and other activities, and are designed so that people can depend on another for childcare and elder care among other day-to-day necessities.
Ten years ago, a group of families developed Ten Stones, an intentional co-housing community on 88 acres in Charlotte, and five years ago a group of families bought two adjacent farms in Hartland, totaling 260 acres, and formed Cobb Hill Co-housing.
According to tenstones.com, Champlain Valley Co-housing is in the process of building the first of several connected units in Charlotte on 125 acres of land, and expects the first residents to move in sometime in the spring.
Two other co-housing groups, one in Burlington and one in Montpelier, have yet to break ground, but Burlington’s group expects to begin building in March.
In each of these co-housing communities, the homes are built as either connected units, or close together, on only a small portion of the total land.
Nationally, there are 165 active co-housing communities, according to the Co-housing Association of the U.S.
The Association says that the impact of co-housing communities may be less obvious than communes, mainly because their residents see themselves, in many respects, as member of the local society as much as they are of their own planned community.
In the case of Cobb Hill, that means opening up hundreds of acres of land to local hikers, skiers, and snowmobilers and having their kids attend local public schools.
In Charlotte, members of the Champlain Valley Co-housing group meet weekly at the Charlotte Senior Center and families are already sending their kids to the Charlotte public school.
In Burlington, the co-housing project will fill in an open parcel of land that is currently surrounded by homes.
“I believe we were meant to live in tribes,” said Larilee Suitor, one of the first members of the Champlain Valley Co-housing group in a recent article.
Kelly and Rick Devine, who have two children, moved to Burlington from Plymouth, MA, after looking at other co-housing communities in the planning stages in New England.
And, there were the people to consider.
Their son, a first grade, is already attending Charlotte schools and their house is already under construction.
Source: co-housing.org
.