Building community

Families eager to begin sharing meals, support in cohousing project

The idea started small. Kathy Journeay and a few close friends wanted to buy houses together on a cozy street so they could pool resources, raise their children together, and share their lives.

More than seven years later, those same friends are about to realize their dream - albeit on a much larger scale than they ever imagined - and move into Sawyer Hill EcoVillage, a 68-unit development in Berlin that is the largest cohousing project in the country.

As in a traditional condominium complex, each unit will be individually owned. But within its carefully designed pathways, there will be playdates, social events, and a shoulder to cry on just a short walk away. A community garden will be tended by residents, providing home-grown produce to be enjoyed by all.

And at the center of their social lives will be shared meals - like the recent gathering in the development's central common house, organized while awaiting the official occupancy permits that will let them move in for good.

"Ideally, for me, community is where I can get support in my times of crisis and I can give support," said Journeay, 39, who expects to move in with her husband within a few weeks. "When no one is in crisis, I have friends who I can spend time with."

Although idealism ushered in the cohousing dream, Journeay and her friends quickly learned that it takes tenacious will to master all the technical, legal, and regulatory aspects that come with building a housing development.

They also had to convince Berlin - a town with deep agricultural roots - that they would be good neighbors.

Cohousing is still a novel idea in this country, though the model has been around since its 1964 birth in Denmark. There are 10 of the developments in Massachusetts and 114 across the nation, according to the Cohousing Association of the United States. Sawyer Hill is the largest, beating out a development in Decatur, Ga., by one unit.

But as green living becomes mainstream ethos, cohousing may skyrocket. There are 74 communities in various stages of development, 25 in California alone, according to the Cohousing Association.

"The web of life that we have created through driving is just eliminated in cohousing," said an association spokeswoman, Neshama Abraham Paiss. "You've got a real village."

Sawyer Hill's founders eagerly studied the work of cohousing's pioneers.

"We decided early on that we didn't want to reinvent the wheel," Journeay said.

They learned how architecture is used to promote frequent interaction among residents. Homes are clustered around walking paths and a common house, where shared meals and events are held throughout the week. Social activities are centered on the property, child care is shared, and knowing your neighbors is inevitable.

Sawyer Hill EcoVillage is composed of two 34-unit communities with distinct architectural styles - Mosaic Commons features multifamily buildings in the New England saltbox design, while Camelot CoHousing, where Journeay's family will live, offers modern duplexes and standalone homes.

Although the neighborhoods will share infrastructure responsibilities and have events together from time to time, residents will affiliate more closely with their respective communities, said Journeay.

Shared meals will be at the heart of each neighborhood. As daunting as cooking for 34 households may be, it's a duty that rolls around only every month and a half, said Journeay. In exchange, residents can enjoy two cooked meals per week, while using only one kitchen on those nights instead of 34.

In most places, "maybe the only time you ever see your neighbor is when you're pulling your mail out of your mailbox. You don't find excuses to interact with each other. You don't have the opportunities to get to know each other's lives," she said. "Did you just have a baby? Then I should be making you casseroles and bringing them over."

Before settling on Berlin, Journeay and her partners spent a year trying to find the perfect spot to build. During dozens of visits to area communities, nothing clicked. But then they found it in Berlin, a 65-acre former tree farm, and bought the property in January 2005.

"When we finally found land, it finally became real," said Ginny Maki, 38, who has been involved with the project since 2003.

Soon after finding the land, the people who formed Camelot CoHousing banded together with the people from Mosaic Commons, who had also been searching for a site, and formed Sawyer Hill EcoVillage. But they still had to persuade the town, and its residents, that this new arrangement would work.

Berlin's bylaws require new homes be built on at least 2 acres. To have homes set up in the clusters they envisioned, Sawyer Hill's organizers obtained a permit under the state's Chapter 40B law, which allowed them to work around the local zoning regulations. In exchange for the leeway provided by its comprehensive permit, 40B requires that at least 25 percent of a development's units be set aside as affordable housing, based on income and price restrictions set by the state. Of Sawyer Hill's 68 units, 51 are under purchase agreements. And of the 17 still for sale, 10 units are earmarked as affordable.

It's this clustering of homes, one of the key components of cohousing's sustainable-development model, that bothers some people in town.

Emerson Chandler, a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals, said Sawyer Hill's contention that it is environmentally sustainable is "baloney," because the clustering has caused water to run onto a neighboring property.

But he cast the deciding vote in January 2007 to allow the project, avoiding a lengthy fight.

Tony Valchius has lived for 35 years on his 23-acre Pleasant Street property, downhill from the western side of the development. He said since construction began at Sawyer Hill, he's had at least a 200 percent increase in storm-water runoff cascading over his land, and has spent more than $60,000 in legal and engineering fees trying to prove that the development's runoff controls are inadequate.

Journeay said engineers representing three different parties - Sawyer Hill, the town, and Valchius - all have said the arrangement in place should work.

Cohousers also may face cultural challenges as they move in over the coming months.

Berlin is so committed to its agricultural roots that it recently approved a bylaw protecting farmers from complaints about noise, odors, and dust. Many of the Sawyer Hill residents have jobs that stray far from the land - it's a "geek-heavy" crowd, said Journeay.

"We have lots of people in the computer industry," as well as a large number of Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduates, in Camelot, said Journeay, who is a business account manager at Tufts Health Plan. "We have an honest-to-God rocket scientist."

But the village's residents say they are committed to contributing to the community, through politics, schools, or by just being good neighbors.

"One of the things we're so excited about is that we were able to put so much of the land into conservation," said Maki, referring to the 28.5 acres that Sawyer Hill has set aside as open space. Residents will build and maintain trails for public use.

This month, Maki will be moving into her three-bedroom unit with her family. In addition to her husband and two young children, her mother will be there.

And her younger brother, Ethan Bickford, was able to buy a reduced-rate unit in the community because his income falls within the 40B guidelines.

Maki said her children are ecstatic about their future home and she loves that Sawyer Hill is multigenerational. After the death of her sister eight years ago, she said, she realized even more the importance of a tight-knit community and being close to loved ones.

"Once something like that has happened in your life," she said, "it makes you take stock and remember what's important."