top of page

All Posts
Outside help
For urban CoHousing there are tons of tasks that need to take place to maintain the building and some are worth doing yourself while others are not. General cleaning Can be done on a rotating basis or done by a committee .it's very labor intensive even with machines so extremely busy people probably aren't the best candidates. You can have one person physically do all the cleaning or have somebody create a cleaning system that involves everybody doing a small part. A cleani
Shane Strano
Oct 30, 20253 min read
Â
Â
Â
Co ownership of a house
Very basic not legal or financial understanding of ways people can own a home together. Its unlikely but it can come up in cohousing There are 3 main types of ownership structures Tenancy in common My very basic understanding is that 2 people can put up unequal amounts of money for the same property and both people get full access to the property. You just have different shares. You are able to pass on your rights to the property without consent of the other tenant to whoev
Shane Strano
Oct 30, 20252 min read
Â
Â
Â
Is jersey city walkable
Pretty much If you live in the 07302 area it's very walkable . You have a few grocery stores , access to the mall just a bit further out , access to restaurants ( leans towards Korean , Chinese and Indian food but there are American spots too ) , a pretty consistent farmers market, and a few yoga Pilates type deals. Schools are dependent on your needs but a few elementary , middle and high schools to choose from that are walkable. If they don't suit your needs there are bus
Shane Strano
Oct 29, 20252 min read
Â
Â
Â
Acoustic engineering
For urban CoHousing you're gonna want to hire one to really feel comfortable I believe the specialization is architectural acoustics ( It's also possible the construction company you use already has one ) They can help guide the construction in ways that allow you to live closer and take up less sq footage. Small gains can add up. Then when it comes time for private homes you can dedicate more space to being creative and fun vs pure noise cancellation. In general you want
Shane Strano
Oct 29, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Types of bikes / scooters
There are several bikes you can share for different reasons Toddler or Kids bike / trike / scooter Almost toy levels of swapability . There are about 3 levels of bikes/ scooters up until you get standard small bikes/ scooters that your kid can ride independently so it'll be cost effective to get maybe one and per level and keep them around just in case. They don't go through much wear and tear and they don't take up much space so it's probably fine to be kept in the bike ro
Shane Strano
Oct 28, 20253 min read
Â
Â
Â
Shared vehicles
Another common fixture in cohousing. you should start tracking your car use metrics. Something like Month Day of the week No. of hours not parked in front of your house And Number of trips Ex: December Saturday 3 + 4 hours = 7 hours in total 2 trips in other words , " During ice skating season I leave around 10 am , drop my kid off, run errands all day Saturday and finally rest at 7 pm. I come back home to eat lunch and unwind 1 pm - 3 pm " Once you map it out you can
Shane Strano
Oct 28, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
What should you have built into your building walls ?
Very very little id almost go against installing a stove in the counters so you can upgrade it easier. ( Exaggeration but you get what I mean ) Its possible to have the perfect speaker setup with the perfect TV specs done right the first time but more often than not you'll end needing a replacement or wanting an upgrade and it's more limiting to have stuff built-in to the walls This also goes for the private homes as well because you can streamline the construction process
Shane Strano
Oct 27, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Parking
Heavily implied but in urban CoHousing parking will be difficult. Trying to be more sustainable and cut down on car dependence means cars will be prioritized less than amenities / people. You basically want to assume they'll be no parking for guests. You can still host VERY big gatherings in the common house for holidays or other occasions but you want to tell people in advance that there will be very limited parking. It is the trade off to being able to walk/ bike to get mo
Shane Strano
Oct 27, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Aesthetic
The least important part of cohousing imo But if you have the budget do what you feel . You can go for really unconventional designs because you're not maximizing for resale value. Id try to avoid aesthetics that compromise the function of the buildings tho. You can have a partially roofless common house but you probably don't want that for the entire place. You also wouldn't want anything roofless if your winters get really cold. A fountain is cool but you gotta think abou
Shane Strano
Oct 26, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Coliving vs Cohousing community
Coliving can be an intentional community . CoHousing can be an intentional community . CoHousing tends to be an intentional community more often while coliving is moreso done for profit. CoHousing can be for profit but it's rare. With cohousing everybody intends to be neighborly and wants to work together because of the nature of the building process. CoHousing also has a more refined communication process because youre going to be dealing with the same people throughout the
Shane Strano
Oct 26, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Co-living vs cohousing 2
Co-living is a residential community living model that accommodates three or more people living in the same apt as roommates.Coliving is moreso focused on flexibility rather than customization. You get generally nice stuff with generally nice people. It can be a nice alternative to standard apt renting and if you don't like relying on roommates to get a bigger place it can be a decent alternative. With cohousing, the emphasis is more on individual ownership and customizatio
Shane Strano
Oct 25, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Guest policy
I think there are a few scenarios you want to avoid First is simply illegal behavior in the building . It creates a VERY bad look on your community if police show up to your building and you don't want your town questioning what you're doing. There are TONS of tricky scenarios with people which I am sympathetic to but the general rule i have is if police are called somebody's gotta move out / sell pretty quickly. There shouldn't be a scenario where the victim of a crime and
Shane Strano
Oct 25, 20253 min read
Â
Â
Â
Intentional community experience
It is VERY nice to have experience. Ngl. Especially if the intentional community was Cohousing. They can more easily adapt to the cohousing communication style and they will already understand connection requires work to become effortless. Depending on what type of community , you do have to make it clear that 99.99 % of time there is no work for stay option in cohousing . That's about it
Shane Strano
Oct 24, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
How much do you sell cohousing?
If your reading this, the algorithm probably thinks you would like cohousing already but obviously the majority of people your surrounded by probably have no idea what it is. Most people don't. So pressure do you put on them to get into it ? My intuition tells me you should only nudge people in the direction of more information. You shouldn't hard close people into joining a community. Not because it's ineffective but because almost all of the work that goes into cohousing is
Shane Strano
Oct 24, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Micro apts
Also a fan but it's definitely not for the unintentional. You have to want to live in one ,plan to live in one and most importantly you have to have stuff to do outside of your apt. ( This is where the common house comes in handy 🫡) Micro in Jersey city is weird but for the sake of the post. Lets just say 300 sq ft studio 400 sq ft 1 bed 550 sq ft 2 bed 700 sq ft 3 bed And 900 sq ft 4 bed are all micro apts There are drawings below to help some drawings below to help visuali
Shane Strano
Oct 23, 20252 min read
Â
Â
Â
Frequency of social events in cohousing
( mostly after the building is built but sort of applies to before as well ) It seems like theoretically the more events you have the less people will attend each individual event and vice versa Technically you want to be as selfish as possible. Have as many events as you want and have the type of event you want. People will flow organically to where their schedule and interest aligns. You're not really competing to have the biggest events. Somebody doing better or worse sh
Shane Strano
Oct 23, 20252 min read
Â
Â
Â
How much real estate / construction knowledge do you need goingin?
How much real estate / construction knowledge do you need going in ? Every bit helps but you don't need to be an expert in anything. Every little bit goes a long way over time. You don't want to assume you know better than an expert but you want to have enough confidence to question them on important things and get the full pros and cons. Types of questions to ask are " what are the longest lasting Xs ? Why ? " " If we do X how will that affect Y ? " " Can we do this ourse
Shane Strano
Oct 22, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Will I be trapped in cohousing forever?
That's the goal but no not legally lol you should set up fair exit strategies with your group before you start building so nobody feels like they have to hide or run away if they decide to move. Think of something fair that respects the commitment of people that got in earlier but also respects the life circumstances that would warrant a move. You don't want someone to default on a mortgage and have to be forced out of their place because they're trying too hard to stay. An e
Shane Strano
Oct 22, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
Inconvenience is the price we pay for community
Imma try to give the full breakdown of this statement because it's popping off a bit but by itself Its probably true. but Inconvenience should be matched with an equal or greater intensity of positive feelings and consequences. You shouldn't be pouring into something that gives you less back . A financial example , your cohousing group decides to order a farmers market food box but the shipping comes 4 hours late once every 2 months. It is inconvenient that you have possibl
Shane Strano
Oct 21, 20252 min read
Â
Â
Â
Parking minimums
Most people in cohousing don't want to be car dependent so having shared bikes ( including ebikes ) and shared vehicles can eliminate A LOT of car usage. Which will eliminate a lot of parking spot needs. You can highly encourage people to get rid of their cars but it's ultimately their choice so you should be transparent about the possibility that they might have to pay for a parking garage and guests might have a hard time finding parking if they live in your building. If
Shane Strano
Oct 21, 20251 min read
Â
Â
Â
bottom of page