potrero view

April 2010

Potrero Hill Eyed for Cohousing Development

By Sarah Marloff

Nearly 20 people gathering at a vacant lot in Potrero Hill’s southern slope last month as part of an effort to identify possible sites for a cohousing development.  The tour was lead by the East Bay Cohousing Meetup Group, an online community of Bay Area residents interested in cohousing.  Cohousing – which was first created in Denmark in the early 1970s – is based in part on an entire community helping to raise its children, with an emphasis on gender neutral domestic roles.  Known as “condos with community,” cohousing “starts out green and gets greener,” according to Raines Cohen, Meetup Group’s assistant cohousing organizer. “It’s recreating an old fashioned neighborhood, where the residents create the neighborhood, which is what makes it green.” Cohen has lived in East Bay cohousing for the last decade.

Architect Greg VanMechelen identified the site – Texas and Mississippi just north of 25th Street – as one of several that could be suitable for cohousing. The tour provided potential inhabitants the opportunity to check things out.  In the “spirit of cohousing, the decision should be made by the group of residents, not the architect or developer,” said VanMechelen. Tour participants were excited by the area’s views, as well as “the strong sense of community and neighborhood we found,” said Meetup Groups’ cohousing organizer Betsy Morris.  However, several people felt the space was too urban or too expensive.   

There are nearly 90 cohousing communities the Bay Area. The East Bay Cohousing Meetup Group has 1,100 members.  However, while informal arrangements exist, there are no formal co-housing developments in San Francisco.  Creating cohousing in the City could be “expensive and risky and few groups are willing to take on that kind of risk,” said Cohen.

VanMechelen has worked on the Berkeley Cohousing community kitchen project – building a kitchen that the whole community cooks in several times a week – and other multi-family projects throughout the Bay Area.  Several different sites are being considered by the Meetup group members.  Cohousing concepts “include a group of 15 to 20 row-houses or a possible multi-story apartment building. This depends on the site selected and the type of housing that the group chooses. There will likely be a common house in either scenario, as this is a feature found in virtually every cohousing community,” said VanMechelen

Cohen believes that with nearby access to Muni, the Interstate 280 on-ramp, and Caltrain the site would be attractive to downtown and Silicon Valley commuters.  “I don’t know enough about San Francisco politics and neighborhood finances to say anything about [if it will happen]. But the site is already approved for a green, 28-unit building,” said Cohen.   According to Cohen, another potential cohousing site is located on Third Street.  “We’re planning some more visits and meetings to see if we can help make this happen there,” said Morris.   Ultimately, to move forward a core group – roughly five people – of cohousing residents would need to form. “After that happens, it would probably take a year or more, depending, to get the project designed and approved, and another year to build the structures,” said VanMechelen.

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