While celebrating Earth Day in Roberts Creek this Sunday, take some time to visit the grounds and hear presentations at the Roberts Creek cohousing village.
An open house will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. with tours and information at the village located at the end of the cul de sac on Emery Street.
At the start of this century, a small group of people with a shared vision for a new kind of?housing met in Roberts Creek. They wanted to see if they could create a kind of clustered?housing that valued neighbourhood, left a small footprint on the earth and fostered connections between generations. They subsequently formed the legal entity, which was needed to get the job done, bought 20 acres (eight hectares) of land and created Roberts Creek cohousing.
It was the first rural cohousing development to be built in Canada.
Twelve years later, other residents of the Coast can come and see how this vision was translated into action and how the results have flourished over the past decade.
There are 31 homes on the site, ranging from one-bedroom duplexes to four-bedroom detached homes. There is also a common house with a fully-equipped kitchen, children's play room and guest suite, as well as two other buildings, one of which houses the resources of a fully professional wood workshop.
The design intention of those who began this development was to incorporate a practical kind of environmental sensitivity into every aspect of the development. Before the first bulldozers arrived to prepare the site, they flagged the significant trees to be kept, and houses were sited so most of those trees are still standing. Lumber was milled from the trees that had to be felled and used in the construction of the houses.
Close to 80 people now live there, ranging in age from a baby just born this year to one of the founders who is now over 90. The families come in all shapes and sizes. What is just as remarkable as the diversity of these households is the fact that for more than a decade, they have been able to resolve the inevitable disagreements that are always part of being human, and have succeeded in balancing group and individual needs.
Decisions about everything from what to plant in the organic garden, the menus for shared celebratory meals or how to set the strata fees are made by a number of volunteer committees. Although there are no rules about how much or how little people should participate, there is a culture of expectation around participation, and more than anything else, this has been the key to success. Connection is built through involvement, and community is built through connection.
For more information, see www.robertscreekcohousing.ca/.
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