See below for two perspectives on the recent UK cohousing events. Were you there? If so, it would great to hear your comments - you can add them by clicking 'add new comment' at the bottom of the page, or clicking here. What worked, what didn't, what did you gain from the events?

Maria Brenton, Older Women's cohousing, London:

Creating Cohousing Together and other events - a shot in the arm for cohousing in the UK!

The series of conferences, workshops and seminars organised by the UK Cohousing Network in conjunction with Hanover Housing Group in the last week of April were a resounding success. Warm thanks go out to all who contributed to making it happen and all those who participated. Thanks are particularly due to Hanover and the Tudor Trust, whose financial backing was key to all the events.

The major contributors and star performers were, of course, Chuck Durrett and Katie McCamant, cohousing gurus from the US, around whose visit to the UK the events were built. The 'will-they, won't they arrive?' uncertainties of the volcanic ash episode made for some very nerve-wracking moments for the Network coordinator, Sarah Berger and Board colleagues, but those moments paled into the background once the full force and high quality of Chuck and Katie's input began to be felt. Chuck and Katie gave their all to every event they took part in and the UK Network would like to put on record their grateful thanks for this and appreciation for the closer links with both the US and Danish cohousing experience their input forged with us here in the UK.

Katie, who specialises on the development side of cohousing in the USA, kicked off the first conference with a workshop on marketing. This was inspirational. Those present got the benefit of more than two decades of her experience in working with forming groups, with helpful indicators of 'what works' to draw on and apply in a UK context. The first day's conference combined a helpful overview of happenings in the UK cohousing field, a report back from existing and forming cohousing groups and a key speech by Chuck on 'Lessons from the USA' which was a rich mix of valuable information, his personal experience and his own enjoyable brand of humour.

The conference was very well-attended and proved a good networking opportunity for cohousers and would-be cohousers from all over. It has made it all the more imperative that the role of the UK Network in stimulating, promoting and supporting the development of cohousing in the UK should be placed on a firm financial footing, and draw on the energies and mandate of a membership base. It needs to do what it only can do, which is develop and coordinate a cadre of cohousing professionals who can assist nascent groups to turn their dreams into practical reality.

Hopefully, notes of both Katie's and Chuck's contributions over the five days can eventually be made available via the website. Also when the film record made of the first two days' events is edited, it can be made available widely throughout the country.

Chuck and Katie collaborated in an all day specialised workshop on the Sunday, called 'Getting it Built'. This was a really useful nuts-and-bolts approach to cohousing which they condensed from their normal two-day workshop for groups in the US. No-one who attended this could fail to absorb a wealth of practical lessons on forming groups, designing communities participatively, organising, phasing and motivating the finance, etc. Chuck and Katie made valiant efforts to understand the UK context in applying these lessons from the fifty or so cohousing communities they have helped to come into being in the States.

The two major events were followed next day by a conference on 'affordable cohousing' organised by Hanover for an invited audience of mostly professionals from the UK housing world. This was a good launch-pad for what David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, described as a real upsurge of interest in cohousing as key element amid current political preoccupations with forms of local co-operation and mutuality. Speakers from the Homes and Communities Agency and from Co-operative Development Services joined with Chuck and Katie in exploring a range of issues from the HAPPI Report, Community Land Trusts to cohousing in a series of presentations chaired with his usual informed and light touch, by Lord Richard Best, Chair of Hanover and Chair of the HAPPI Panel. The word was sent out to an audience of housing professionals, that cohousing is an up and coming concept that will deliver on a number of public policy issues and engage the interests of housing associations in mobilising self-management and a sense of community in their housing schemes. This is to be taken further by the UK Network with a third seminar for the housing association world on July 22, 2010 in London.

The final event in the series designed around Chuck and Katie was a day-seminar at Hanover's headquarters in Staines which brought together for the first time not only representatives of the three intending cohousing groups forming a partnership with Hanover but an impressive array of senior Hanover directors and managers who were learning about cohousing for the first time. OWCH, the Older Women's Cohousing Group, London, the London and Countryside Group and the Lifetime Group from Bradford all made presentations about the hopes and challenges they perceive in these early days of partnership with Hanover.

Alans Heeks Threshold Centre, Dorset

Creating cohousing together: clarifying the way forward at the 2nd UK cohousing conference

The second UK Cohousing Conference, held in London on April 24, was a great success. Over 120 people attended, well above expectations. The level of debate and information exchange was high, and the conference provided clear pointers for the future progress of cohousing in the UK.

Sarah Berger, the Network Coordinator, started with an overview of the current state of play. In the five years since the first UK Cohousing Conference, there have been major achievements to celebrate. Cohousing as a desirable new form of housing provision is definitely on the map with policy-makers and the media, because it can meet increasingly pressing and widespread needs - such as sustainability, affordability, and mutually supportive living for older people. The first UK scheme to offer affordable cohousing with a housing association has now been completed at the Threshold Centre in Dorset, and several other housing associations, notably Hanover Housing, are now working with resident groups on other cohousing schemes. But as Sarah Berger also observed, the number of cohousing groups obtaining sites and planning permission is slow: "We have major constraints to overcome".

The UK Cohousing Network has been researching how to resolve these constraints in the past couple of years, and has realised how much can be learned from the US, where cohousing has grown rapidly in the past 15 years. Hence the focus of this conference was Charles Durrett and Kathryn McCamant, the American architects who brought cohousing from Denmark to the US, and have worked as architects and project managers to help over 40 American cohousing schemes to fruition. Some of the major points they made were:

• Cohousing can be easy if you have the right structures, processes and professionals.
• The inputs of a professional developer partner can provide a lot of this, and will help to recruit other specialist professionals and the building contractor who might be wary of working directly with resident groups.
• Major decisions, including site layout and design, must be led by resident wishes, but the process must be structured to avoid wasting professional time.
• They also require resident groups to be trained by a professional outside facilitator in decision-making and group process.
• Cohousing needs planning and other officials to flex their policies: residents together with professionals can often achieve this.

The inputs from McCamant and Durrett were both inspiring and practical: they provided some clear pointers to speed the progress of UK cohousing, and also left questions about areas where the US model needs to be adapted to the UK situation. These include how to provide cohousing for low and intermediate income groups, and reduce the dependence on large owner-occupier down payments to help fund the whole process. There is also the question of how to create the developer partners and other professional capabilities needed in the UK, and how to finance this. The Cohousing Network already has some contacts who could help this process: for example, housing associations can play the role of a developer partner, there are grant-making trusts who could help with funding, and there are now some professionals with cohousing experience.

The conference also included workshops on a range of specific topics, lead by members of established UK cohousing groups, along with McCamant and Durrett. Over 30 forming cohousing groups were represented at the conference, so there was a great deal of information exchange and contact forming. The conference ended with a call for more people to get involved with the work of the UK Cohousing Network to enable these insights to be taken forward.

Sarah Berger, Project Co-ordinator, UK Cohousing Network

Powerpoint Presentations
'Recent Developments in Cohousing'
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'NESTA Senior Cohousing Programme'
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Hugh Hoffman, Vivarium Trust

Conference Summary

For full document, download attachment below