Cohousing living, what’s it all about?

These projects take time. Robin remembers calling the first public meeting to kick off Earthsong in 1995. The group grew over the years and they bought the land in 1999. Five people paid the deposit, then 27 people loaned enough money to the group’s company to settle the rest.

Robin was an architect and became the development coordinator of Earthsong in West Auckland and was the liaison person between the group and outside consultants. The author of a book on the Earthsong story, “Cohousing for Life,” she often hears from groups considering the cohousing model in NZ and wanting to hear of her experience.

Cohousing comes in different forms, she says. Sometimes, people have bought up houses in a suburban area and added to them over time. Or they’ve bought an industrial building or a high rise, or a rural property. Having a big enough space where you can gather and eat and meet is pretty key in building cohousing, she advises.

At Earthsong there are 32 homes in total: some apartments, some terrace houses. It was built in four stages over eight years, the first 17 houses completed as stage one in 2002. The site had been a clean organic orchard and was next to shops and walking distance to Rānui railway station. The development has many small vege gardens and many fruit trees on 1.2 hectares.

A key part of any cohousing project are the shared facilities, says Robin, which, at Earthsong, include a big common house which the whole community uses.

“It’s part of our home that we share with other people,” says Robin. It has a big dining room, a meeting room, it’s a big space, she says. It can be used for movie nights or seminars and seats about 60 people. There’s a guest room in the common house too and a childrens’ room and a teenagers’ room.

David Welch and his partner Georgianne Griffiths and architect couple, Thom Gill and Helle Westergaard of Studio Nord, bought the land in central Auckland, Grey Lynn for Cohaus.nz in 2017. They received resource consent in 2018 and people moved in in 2021, with 55 living there today.

The Cohaus development at 11-13 Surrey Cres, is a 20 unit housing development. The 2,400 sqm site previously housed Fairleigh Lodge, a residential long term care facility, and a maternity hospital before that.

“We were really driven to find a place which was walkable, we didn’t want to rely on cars,” says David, a lecturer in Computer Science at Uni of Auckland.

The Cohaus homes are fully insulated, with thermal insulation, high quality joinery and high quality insulation between units. The development is made up of a three storey apartment block with 12 units and a terrace house block with six, two storey terrace houses plus two stacked one bedroom units. There‘s also a renovated three bedroom villa which was originally on the site. The homes range from studios to one, two and three bedroom homes and there’s a five bedroom unit. 

The two bedroom units ranged in price from $765,000  to $960,000 and three bed units were priced at around $1.2 million. One bedroom units were priced from $530,000 (44 sqm studio) to $660,000 and all units have generous decks or patios on top.

At the Grey Lynn cohousing development, everything is arranged around a common courtyard and the hub is the garden house which is around 36 sqm. It’s an open space to gather, with a kitchenette and toilet. The residents have potluck shared meals there, children play in the house, people work there sometimes and the body corporate or other meetings happen there too, says David. 

Other shared spaces also include a guest room and ensuite in the apartment block that residents can book for a visitor and there’s a common laundry, though you can have a washing machine in your home, and a large bike storage space. There are also six shared cars.

“Doing a cohousing development isn’t easy,” says David. The fact that there’s only a handful of these places in the whole country, in urban settings, only three or four, shows how difficult it is.

“You’ve got to think like a developer. You’re not going to get a cheap place. If we look at the cost of our units it’s about the same as equivalent sized ones in the area. But our units have many more amenities than standard ones,” he says. 

If you’re interested in becoming involved in a new cohousing development rather than starting one yourself, the Tākaka cohousing project in beautiful Golden Bay is seeking residents for its second neighbourhood of 18 homes. In addition they have house and land packages.

The project is taking loans of interest from people to reserve a home in Neighbourhood 2. The second neighbourhood will have two and three bedroom duplex homes, though a three bedroom can be converted into four.

People can look at the project’s first neighbourhood, close by, completed in 2023 with 34 units and a thriving community.

British-born Simone Woodland is founder of the Tākaka cohousing project. She tells people, as she goes around the country on a roadshow running through June, that cohousing isn’t a commune and you don’t have to share beliefs.

Simone is employed by Mōhua Ventures, which is the development company building and promoting the cohousing project. “We’re good at getting our project out there, through physical and online presentations, social media and through people following our newsletter, also existing community members told their friends,” she says 

So far six have invested in neighbourhood 2.  “We create the community before we build the buildings. Investors get the first right to buy a house,” she explains.

Simone bought the 14.5 hectare site, which will have three neighbourhoods in the end, four years ago, for $1.1 million. It's residentially zoned and next to Golden Bay High School. As director of Elemental Design and Build, a natural building company, Simone put down the 10% deposit on the land purchase and then found others to contribute to raise the rest of the money. 

Simone is architecturally trained and has a Masters in Urban Design. She’s the designer of the homes and the site, in collaboration with Redbox Architects, and lives in the first neighbourhood with her partner, five year old daughter and baby. The homes are priced from $575,000 to $700,000 and the healthy homes, sustainably built, have been sold at cost. 

“That way, it’s achievable for young families ensuring an intergenerational community,” explains Simone. Kiwibank was the construction loan provider and wanted the community to each put in a 30% deposit. This wasn’t possible for all but some put in 50 to 100%  to help others who then only needed to put in 10% to 20%. You won’t ever see this happen in a subdivision. 

The urban designer says the landholding has stood the community in good stead for the financial viability of the project. 

“We had a lot of residential zoned land which is hard to come by in other places. We could use this land as security, the loans were backed because we could always subdivide and turn it into smaller lots if the project was unsuccessful,” she says 

The first neighbourhood is all double storey duplexes, so the 52 adults and 10 children can live close together and they protect the land. 

“If the houses are totally detached, you don’t get that sense of community,”  says Simone. The cohousing project is run on a body corporate basis. 

“We own our house, and the land the house is on, and 2.5 ha is common land for the first neighbourhood,” she says.

The land remaining after the next two neighbourhoods are built will be kept in trust and be regenerated land for the community. 

There’s also workshop storage space, parking for 44 cars including 12 guest parking,  a large yard for storage and trailers, a central green and cluster gardens plus food growing orchards. And a big deal is the first neighbourhood’s common house due to be completed in June. Using natural build construction, a collaboration between Elemental Design & Build, and Kohu Kemp, it will be the biggest hempcrete building in the country and Simone is planning a winter solstice party to celebrate its completion.

The next two neighbourhoods will have their own common spaces too.