Aug 22: SF Bay Area Cohousing Bus Tour (East Bay) August 22, 2009

Curious about Cohousing?

A personal visit to a variety of cohousing communities offers you an experience that no photo, website or book can offer. To provide you with this opportunity, the Cohousing Association of the United States (Coho/US) sponsors daylong tours of cohousing communities in several areas around the nation. You are cordially invited to join us on this bus tour and "traveling workshop" led by two local and knowledgeable cohousing residents. This tour will focus on the wonderful variety of Cohousing communities in San Francisco's East Bay.

We are planning to visit Swan's Market, Temescal Creek and Temescal Commons in Oakland, then Pleasant Hill, Berkeley and Doyle Street in Emeryville. As you travel between locations on a comfortable bus, the tour leader(s) will give participants a chance to introduce themselves, share general information about cohousing, answer questions, provide fact sheets and site plans, and prepare you for your 40-minute visit to each community.

At each stop, a community host (often a long-time resident) will guide your group through his or her neighborhood and answer questions. Around mid-day, we eat lunch, which we sometimes get to eat in one of the communities common houses with some of the residents. Optional gourmet boxed lunch or bring your own. Cohousing communities offer nurturing places where people of all ages grow and age well.

Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighborhoods. Cohousing residents are consciously committed to living as a community. The physical design encourages both social contact and individual space. Private homes contain all the features of conventional homes, but residents also have access to extensive common facilities such as open space, courtyards, a playground and a common house.

To learn more and to register, visit http://www.cohousing.org/tours

We look forward to having you join us for a day full of learning, community building and fun.

"This was the most inspiring day I have had in a long time. Our world needs more Cohousing" (JB - 2009 tour participant)