Our Community’s Way of Life

Cohousing is a way to live in community. We own our own homes and can find quiet and privacy there. But we also share many aspects of our lives - gardening, cooking, eating, celebrating and even raising our children together. Begun in Denmark, cohousing is a remarkable way to have fuller lives, a conscious effort to break the isolation that has become the hallmark of so many American neighborhoods.

About 50 people, one-quarter of whom are children, live here, in households of various forms and sizes. Our 23 units, cedar-sided duplexes and triplexes, face one another in a village-like setting. The front porches open onto courtyards and common areas, making it easy to visit neighbors, watch children and share our lives.

Our homes sit on 2.4 acres in West Seattle. In building our project, we saved as many trees and native shrubs as possible. And now, a few years later, the grounds are lush, natural and even woodsy. Native Pacific tree frogs sing in our wetland, and screech owls have been heard at the woods’ edge.

Our 4,000 square-foot common house is central to the community’s life. Here, we share meals a few nights a week, provide after-school childcare, conduct meetings and celebrate our milestones. We have a shop for woodworkers, a play area for the children and a piano that has brought music into our lives. A community garden supplements our common meals.

We share the work of maintaining the common house, preparing meals and tending the land. General meetings, where decisions are made by consensus, are held every three weeks. Committees -- such as finance, landscaping and meals -- meet as needed.

Community Highlights

• Our common house, with new gas fire place and new paint job.
• Parent-run, after-school childcare during school year.
• Common garden, with room for individual plots.
• General meetings every three weeks. No hierarchy; decisions made by consensus.
• Woodworking studio and children’s play area in commonhouse. Laundry in commonhouse.
• Guest room in commonhouse.
• Commonhouse dinners twelve times a month; vegetarian and nondairy always available. Meals prepared by cohousers on rotating basis.
• Close ties to surrounding community.
• Diverse neighborhood. Near grade school and community college.
• Grounds maintained by cohousers on rotating basis. Periodic communitywide work parties.

The Values We Hold In Common

In planning our community, we adopted the following Statement of Community Values:
          " Each of us comes to this group with a deep respect for both our shared values and our individual differences. Throughout this process, we hope to take joy in our similarities and differences, support each other’s dreams and ideas, and thus strengthen the friendship that brings us together."

• Community: We value friendship, sharing, learning, health, and cooperation.
• Consensus: We are committed to making community decisions through a process where we have a responsibility to participate and where everyone’s voice is heard.
• Diversity: We seek to enrich our group by including people of diverse backgrounds, such as ethnicity, age, race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, economic status and disability
• Family: We welcome families of all shapes and sizes. We want a safe, dynamic and nurturing place for everyone, and especially for our children.
• Conservation: We want a community which has low impact on the environment and energy resources and which minimizes use of toxic materials.
• Open Space: We wish to maximize open space in order to have play areas, organic gardens, and to preserve and re-introduce natural areas in the city.
• The City: We have chosen to live in the city because we value it as a residential, economic, political, social, and cultural place.

History

Puget Ridge Cohousing was the first urban cohousing project featuring new construction in the United States, and was built in 1994, taking six years from vision to move-in. Puget Ridge was also the first Planned Residential Development in Seattle's current Land Use Code. As outlined in the Code, PRDs are "intended to enhance and preserve natural features, encourage the construction of affordable housing and allow for development and design flexibility."