Designing togetherness
A townhouse project in Second Ward aims to create an extended-family feel
Kelli Soika knows the value of a great neighbor. Her old neighbors were the kind of people who notice and care about the people around them: A quick wave from the window when you walk past, an answered call when you worry that you left your stove on, or an offer of a beer when you’re reading on your porch on a hot afternoon. Great neighbors make everyone’s lives better. They make a community a richer place.
In Soika’s old neighborhood, all the kids put luminaria out at Christmastime and played on the trampoline in the summer. The grown-ups shared cookouts together, and they also built a chicken coop. People worked alongside each other in the garden. “We had connections, large and small, with each person,” she reminisces. “In the biggest sense, we looked out for one another in the way an extended family does because you know each other well.”
Her neighborhood wasn’t just any old place. It was one the neighbors actually built themselves, from finding land to getting financing to construction and creating a set of rules. Over time, they made a community where people easily get to know each other, and they did. Sounds a little like Eden, right? Well, it was not far off: in the rolling mountains of Boulder, Colo., Soika and her family lived in a cohousing community that had been around for decades.
Soika and her family missed the community even before the pandemic, ever since they moved to Houston a few years ago. As luck would have it, she found
Cohousing Houston, which has been putting time, money and sweat equity into designing togetherness. But can it take off here — in the Second Ward, during a global pandemic?
Cohousing Houston would be
the first to do it in “Don’t Tread on Me” Texas, where true blue friendliness coexists with ferocious individualism, and civic engagement has been historically a bit of an oxymoron.
Cohousing is community designed to create connection among its members. It’s often a set of individual homes that share green space, a common house and other amenities and built to make it as easy as possible to get to know your neighbors, spend time with them, and build a network of care.
After six months of isolation, in a country imperiled by loneliness, hurricanes, wildfires, political strife and racial upheaval, having great neighbors never sounded better.
Cohousing Houston is taking big steps to make it happen. In May, it finalized the purchase of a 1.5-acre lot in the East End, the site of a church, chosen for its proximity to transit, green spaces and downtown, as well as its cost per square foot.
Here, the group anticipates building approximately 30 town homes and apartments that appropriately fit into the surrounding context; while the homes will cost more than their immediate neighbors’, the goal is to be part of the neighborhood fabric. The scale and exteriors, according to architects Kathleen English at English and Associates in Houston and Bryan Bowen at Caddis in Boulder, Colo., will be designed to be open and welcoming.
English notes that traditional single-family houses — especially townhouses — are built in a way that isolate people from those who live nearby. Townhouses have all the isolation of the suburbs without the spacious yards, coupled with all the inconvenience of density without the urban life. Cohousing attempts to flip that dynamic by promoting easygoing encounters among neighbors.
One of the major changes from traditional housing that English and Bowen are planning is the relocation of parking. Instead of having garages beneath townhouses, which allow people the chance to move from car-to-house without ever having to say hello to anyone, a collective carport will be placed on one side of the property. Upon arrival, cohousing neighbors walk from the carport through the common courtyard to their homes.
Many cohousing groups provide sturdy, shared carts so that neighbors can easily move groceries and purchases from their car to their home. And say hello to neighbors along the way. (The carts are useful for all sorts of object-moving projects. Soika said they are also fun for kids.)
Once the garage is removed from a townhouse, its ground floor becomes more useful and accessible; people can live on the ground floor and access the outdoors without using stairs. English is considering plans for front and back porches or patios to create a casual environment for neighbors to spend time together outdoors.
She’s also thinking about kitchens that overlook the shared courtyard, so neighbors can see each other and interact or so parents to keep an eye on their children. Ultimately, the goal is for ground floor living rooms to connect to outdoor living areas and for these outdoor living areas to connect to shared community spaces.
Cohousing Houston’s project includes a 4,000-square-foot common house, which would be shared by everyone in the group and at times available for the larger community to rent or reserve. Many common houses have a commercial kitchen, dining capacity to seat all residents at a weekly meal, a workout room, an appliance or tool library, a playroom, a teen room, a meditation room and guest rooms. At times, the dining room would also be used for film screenings, house concerts, yoga classes, Girl Scout meetings, area school functions, community workshops and other group activities.
The shared courtyard is anticipated to be approximately 30 or 40 feet wide by 100 feet long or more. Remember running between the yards as a kid? The group is working to finalize the shared courtyard elements such as vegetable and herb gardens, a shaded dining area and a pool.
Cohousing is not a gated community, and the shared spaces are not merely a “suite of amenities.” As Soika explains, “In cohousing, your day-to-day life is set up for relationship convenience.” It’s not only a state of mind, but also a way to live with others as well as a commitment to share tasks among the community: making weekly or monthly group dinners, cleaning the common house, repairing equipment, sorting mail and also sorting out disagreements through consensus. You are literally working together on the community. Eden, as it turns out, involves a lot of meetings.
It also involves a front-end investment, paperwork and business. The group has created two LLCs: one for land and one for development. Real estate developer David Kelley is the sole owner of the land LLC, which has purchased the land that will be bought by the development LLC when sufficient funds have been raised. For people interested in getting involved and taking a closer look at this option for themselves, households are asked to become an Explorer and to pay a nonrefundable $250 fee. To be part of decision-making process, households sign documents to become part of the LLC and contribute at least $2,000. This also serves as the start of a down payment for a future unit. The earlier that households buy in, the larger the discount they are offered when they purchase their unit. Currently 12 households have bought in and have raised over $100,000. Residences range in price from $270,000 to $770,000. The group is still very much in the midst of its design process; it has plans to break ground in summer 2021 and for homes to be ready in 2022.
Even though the members of Cohousing Houston may be socioeconomically and racially different from their Second Ward neighbors, they want to blend in with the fabric of the community. They’ll be wise to tread respectfully.
Right now, members are connecting with a neighborhood literacy program as well as with a future YMCA in the area. They’ve had a progressive breakfast, biking from one local restaurant to the next, and pre-pandemic, they were plugging in to the East End Farmer’s Market. They intend to offer the common house for use by neighborhood organizations and groups and to volunteer in the area.
You might think all that shared space would be an issue during a pandemic, but as it turns out, the shared community is a lifeline. The group in Houston is finding community in their design meetings on Zoom.
Soika’s old cohousing group has been able to step up and help each other in myriad ways. “They did community grocery runs, and pods (groups) of households made sure to do extra check-ins,” she said. “Now, they’re running a home school enrichment for the kids’ distance learning. They’ve moved community meetings to Zoom to account for the most restrictive folks, and, they just keep on together.”
At times like these, we need all the good neighbors we can find, who look out for each other, extend a helping hand and keep us all on keeping on.
Ludwin is a writer and editor living in Houston. This article originally appeared in Cite Digital, a publication of the Rice Design Alliance, the public programs and outreach arm of Rice Architecture. To learn more and get the most up-to-date news on this project, visit cohousinghouston.com .