Hello fellow Breazers!

I have been thinking lately about how people in society seem to be getting more independent and socially removed, even though our big houses are closer together! Which lead me to think "Is there a better way for us to live together?".

Don't get me wrong, I live in a great area and I get on well with all my neighbours, we even get together for a BBQ occasionally. It's just that the way we all live would have to have an impact on our footprint? We all have large houses, with plenty of area for the kids to play inside (needed in Ballarat weather!). We all have the backyards that are tiny but just large enough that we can still get the trampoline or swing set in, we all have the double garage that can hardly fit 1 car in and we all have the shed to fit the mower and bikes in (and if we're lucky, a few big boys toys too). 

Then to go along with the big houses are the big energy bills too! It takes a lot of energy to heat and cool the "average" new home, mostly because of all the space we need inside.... That's what got me thinking: What if I could have a smaller house with less living area and I could have a building with common areas that I could share with my neighbours? What if instead of having the kids playground equipment taking up all my backyard, I could share the equipment with my neighbours? What if we could share a veggie patch? What if I could have a central heating unit that could share heat with my neighbours? What if we got together to buy a larger solar PV system that we all benefited from? What if we could share our friendship and have weekly meals together? What a concept!

Much to my delight there was a concept and it has been running successfully for many decades in other parts of the world, called Cohousing.  After attending the seminar about cohousing and sharehousing on the 5th of March, I was excited to see that there was a name for the thing I was searching for and that there were others in the area that had been interested by the concept also.
 

Some of the questions that came from the discussion that took place after the presentations were: "How do you make it work?" and "What happens if you have a disagreement?". The presenters were able to show examples of what worked and what didn't and the key points I took out of it all was the follow:

- Appropriate size of group is between 15 and 36 households.

- It needs a mixture of age groups and backgrounds to work.

- You need to set it up like a unit development (i.e. strata titles) and have a body corporate to look after the common areas.(Although the body corporate management group could be made up from resident owners)

- You need to have reasonable private spaces in your own home.

- Cars have to go outside of the neighbourhood. Why have streets when you can have garden?

- You need to have a code of conduct set up that lays out the expectations of the residents.

- You need to get the group together before it is built, so everyone has the chance to have input towards the outcome.

 So with all this information in mind, I would like to extend the offer to fellow Breazers who think that there is a better way that we can live and have a lesser impact on the planet.

If you are interested in living in a cohousing neighbourhood or would just like to talk about it then please get in contact with me. Once we have a few interested groups we can meet and see were our vision and imagination can take us!

Rob Jurg
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M:0402 806045 (please after 5pm or weekends only)