By Daily Press staff
The steadily growing Santa Monica CoHousing Group announces that its next informational and organizational meeting will be held on Sunday, Oct. 29, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. in Palisades Park, on the lawn near Idaho Avenue, just west of Ocean Avenue. The meeting spot will be marked by a green flag and a green blanket.
Anyone interested in learning more about cohousing is encouraged to attend and participate. (For your own comfort, please bring a chair and some drinking water.) The Santa Monica CoHousing Group is an umbrella organization intent on finding suitable property and supporting the formation of one or more cohousing projects in the Greater Santa Monica area within two years. People may join the group’s e-mail list and attend meetings for free, but voting privileges and “seniority rights” to live in future cohousing projects are reserved for paid-up members.
While most people think CoHousing communities require large tracts in suburban and rural areas, many are being established in residential areas just like Santa Monica and most of Los Angeles. According to the CoHousing Association of the United States (www.cohousing.org), there are some 85 CoHousing communities in the U.S. that are completed and currently occupied, with about an equal number in various stages of formation and development.
CoHousing combines the advantages of private condos, townhomes, and single-family residences with the benefits of more sustainable lifestyles, shared common facilities and strong connections with neighboring families. These intentional communities are created, owned, and managed by community residents rather than outside developers or landlords, and offer innovative and practical solutions to today’s financial, environmental and social challenges.
For more information about CoHousing projects in Santa Monica and surrounding areas, visit the SaMo CoHo web site at www.consciousnesscentral.com/cohousing, or send an email to: General information about CoHousing in the U.S. and around the world is available at www.cohousing.org.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 30, 2006. Read the original PDF.