CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Oaktree Development, a Cambridge, Mass.-based developer of residential housing, announced that it's nearing completion of a 20-unit cohousing project in Cambridge Mass. Cohousing, a new twist to residential development, arrived from Denmark to the US about 20 years ago. It creates environmentally sustainable communities through building private homes with community owned land and a “common house” for shared meals and social activities. Currently, there are 80 completed cohousing projects in the United States, and about triple that in some stage of forming or building. In Massachusetts, there are eleven completed cohousing projects.

“We're very excited to be nearing completion point of Richdale Place,” said Gwen Noyes, a principal of Oaketree Development who herself lives in an cohousing project, which was also developed by her firm about 10 years ago. “As a resident of cohousing development myself, I'm a great believer in it, and as a developer we have incorporated the key design elements of cohousing into the Richdale project.”

Yet, Richdale Place is different from other cohousing communites. Added Ms. Noyes: “Instead of a group forming and meeting (sometimes for years) in order to find, design, obtain zoning and building permits, finance and build their community, the future resident group for Richdale Place is having social gatherings and getting to know each other while the building is being built, and they can move in months, not years.”

These future residents at Richdale Place are already making decisions about property management options, and they haven't had to go through the grueling, time-consuming, risky process of developing their community from scratch. “It is possible to capture the lifestyle benefits of cohousing this way and minimize the typical hassles experienced by a formative community,” says Ms. Noyes. “We're very excited about completing our second cohousing project as a more streamlined model for achieving the desired community result.”

Located at 113 Richdale Ave. in Cambridge, Richdale Place is a 20-unit “community-oriented” condominium scheduled for completion in June. It's a few minutes walk to Porter Square's shops and Red Line Station and a pleasant walk to Harvard or Davis Squares. It's a well-designed, small-scale building with many unique, foresighted features.

Ms. Noyes, along with her architect/developer husband Arthur Klipfel, has been the early proponent of sustainable architecture and social living. Their first cohousing project, Cambridge Cohousing, was built in 1998 as the first large-scale urban cohousing community in the United States, and currently houses 41 families, including Ms. Noyes and her family. Their current business partner, Ling Yi Liu was first their cohousing neighbor, and is now the partner-in-charge for Richdale Place's construction. Together, Ms. Noyes, Arthur Klipfel, and more recently, Ling Yi Liu, have developed more than 2,000 housing units across New England.

Ms. Noyes' fascination with the advantages of community housing began many years ago, but became serious when she read Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett's book called “Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves.” In a nutshell, the principles of cohousing are physical, social and environmental. Individual attractive condominium homes and common areas are designed so that people have many occasions to interact and the condo governance is set up so that the residents are involved in the decision-making (ordinarilyy concensus) for their commnity he heir nssen than  many  by consensus) for their community as they wish.  Most importantly, a common house, with a kitchen/dining room, and living room, mailroom, and other community spaces, is integrated into the heart of the residential community. Some cohousing communities have included a children's playroom, a library, a woodshop, an exercise room, a crafts room, a music room, or any other type of room the residents deem valuable. The important thing is that the common rooms give places for people be together, enjoying and sharing resources and space for such things as weekly suppers, family celebrations, presentations, musicales, etc. . This philosophy also supports being environmentally friendly, particularly through proximity to public transportation, “green” building practices and sharing of resources.

Richdale Place is designed for all age groups, though given its urban location and form, there will be fewer children than cohousing communities normally have   Underground parking in a heated garage with elevator access to all floors and the roof deck.  The mailboxes are beside the common living/dining room, inviting easy camaraderie on a daily basis. There's an attractive cabinet in the guest room/study with a Murphy bed allowing a guestroom by night to work as a library/study by day. The guestroom also offers people the option to purchase a smaller unit with one less bedroom while still providing guests with a nice place to sleep. There's a room designated as common but yet-to-be-determined use by the residents, and finally, there's also a 'green', landscaped' roofdeck, which will function as another common area and enhance the cooling and heating efficiency of the building. Entry gardens and patio are also common.