“Cohousing Canberra, has been drawing up plans for a 30-unit development for the past few years. The member-elected committee has worked with members on a vision to model sustainable and co-operative living,” writes TONI HASSAN. 

Cohousing, where families live in private homes clustered around shared facilities, is common in Europe and increasingly popular in the UK, the US and NZ.

The outcome of a tender for a block of land in North Watson has great potential to demonstrate it in Canberra. I do hope it catches on in the capital.

The site on Aspinall Street has been set aside for new cohousing by the ACT government, if agreement can be reached on a proposal.

The organisation I am part of, Cohousing Canberra, has been drawing up plans for a 30-unit development on the site for the past few years. 

The member-elected committee has worked with members on a vision to model sustainable and co-operative living. 

Our plans, developed with AMC Architecture, promise something of a village. 

It includes a generous common room with a large kitchen and dining area; a multipurpose building for recreation. It will look over a large communal garden and orchard maintained by the community of residents with shared resources. 

Our development partner, Canberra KDN Group is led by George Katheklakis, who completed a PhD on cohousing. He leads a team ambitious to see this through. 

One of the aims of the development is to combat loneliness by encouraging intergenerational connections. Another is to create a local pathway to a low-carbon future.

The development will generate and share electricity, host shared e-bikes and e-vehicles and reduce waste by buying products in bulk. Buying groceries in bulk should also lower household costs. It will show what it is possible to achieve locally. 

All units will have northern light, 7-star minimum EER rating, with extensive solar PVs on the roof, and silver level accessibility. 

The block we aim to purchase is well located for public transport with a rapid bus stop nearby and a shared bike and pedestrian path to Watson, Dickson and Civic. A new public park has been built next to the block. 

The Watson site is one of the results of the ACT government’s Demonstration Housing Project. This project aims to demonstrate different forms of housing which could lead to a more sustainable future for Canberra. 

Cohousing Canberra applied to join the project and we were selected as one of the projects without a site in 2018. 

In 2021, the Territory Plan was altered to allow cohousing on part of Section 76, North Watson, not far from the Federal Highway.

Many volunteers over many years have committed time and resources to see the process get to this stage, the request for tender (RFT) stage, to be able to purchase the block at market price. There are no guarantees but the committee is hopeful. 

This development is arguably a first for Canberra since Urambi Village and Wybalena Grove in Cook, built from the 1970s, which has shared parkland and an open plan but not a common house and the expectation of intentional community in the way Cohousing Canberra envisages. 

When we are pitching the idea of cohousing to the wider-community at the Epic Markets and elsewhere, we find genuine interest in the project; an appetite to build new housing that also creates a lively social network and improves wellbeing. 

In between regular committee meetings and stakeholders engagements, there have been social events, often over a meal, so Cohousing Canberra members get to know each other and build a foundation for a strong and collegiate group. 

With the support of the ACT government’s Demonstration Housing Project team, a much smaller cohousing development has just been completed in Ainslie. Three couples have teamed up to live intentionally in homes surrounding a common house, with social and environmental benefits. 

If things work out in Watson and in a timely way, individuals and families will be able to move into their units in about three years. 

The development will comprise a mix of owned units, rented units and social housing. There are studios, two-bedroom and three bedroom options. 

There’s a lot to do, including fundraising for a successful tender and establishing a governance model that ensures inclusive decision making. Residents commit to making decisions together and to run our affairs in a safe, viable, ethical way, looking for creative solutions.

Interested? Find out more on the Canberra Cohousing website and consider joining to be part of what we are developing: a community housing development for our time. 

Toni Hassan serves on the steering committee of Cohousing Canberra. She is an award-winning writer, facilitator and visual artist.