Green co-housing project planned for Old Strathcona

Allan MacNeil grew up during a time when everyone in his Cape Breton community shared a lawn mower.

The self-proclaimed “original tree hugger of the ’60s and ’70s” is hoping to help build that sort of community connection in Edmonton.

MacNeil was among 30 people who attended an information session at the Strathcona Library on Sunday to find out more about the Urban Green Cohousing project — a communityminded and environmentally responsible development destined for a site in Old Strathcona.

“A lot of aspects of our present lifestyle isolate people,” MacNeil said. “This creates a vehicle for relationships to flourish.”

The Urban Green Cohousing Society — formed in 2009 — has already put a down payment of $270,000 on three properties and is in the process of acquiring a fourth at 101st Street and 88th Avenue. The six member households who invested contributed what they could, between $30,000 and $75,000, said member Carolyn Nutter.

She said they are hoping to break ground in 2016, though the plan is still in preliminary stages and no design has been rendered.

The idea is to construct an apartment building of three to four storeys that contains 25 private units. The units would likely range in size from one-bedroom to threebedrooms and there would be about 4,000 square feet of common area.

The co-housing movement, which was first established in Denmark in the 1960s and spread to North America in the 1980s, emphasizes intergenerational living in which each household owns its own private suite, but is part of a planned community that shares common resources and space. For instance, the

“It’s as if we all lived in caves in the side of a mountain.”

RICK ENNS

community may decide to share a play room, workshop, common room with kitchen, guest rooms or an exercise room. Units tend to be smaller than normal because of the communal space and all owners must be members of the society.

For Steve Grubich, 43, who grew up in a suburb of Windsor, Ont. and later lived in a suburb of Edmonton, developing a sense of community appeals to him because he didn’t experience it in those places.

“It’s as if we all lived in caves in the side of a mountain; we entered and exited, we saw people in alleyways every once and awhile,” he said. “It was really difficult to get to know neighbours.”

Rick Enns, 57, said he likes the idea of “aging in place” as part of a large household that looks after and supports its members. He lived in cooperative housing in Winnipeg for five years.

“This represents an important alternative to the conventional housing market,” Enns said. “It’s a different housing model.”

He said he never encountered any problems living in co-op housing because everyone there “valued the same things.”

Susan Petrina, 42, former president of the Highlands Community League, said she attended the session to see what kinds of sustainable projects other communities are undertaking.

“There are a lot of empty lots that could be re-imagined,” she said. “These ideas could be replicated in other parts of the city.”