Shadowlake Village Cohousing
Blacksburg, Virginia
-- About Cohousing and About Us --

What is Cohousing?

Cohousing is a neighborhood of privately owned homes that offers residents an old-fashioned sense of community that is typically absent in contemporary cities and suburbs.   The neighborhood is designed and managed by its residents, and is built to promote easy daily interactions among all residents.

Community is promoted by the layout of the buildings (facing each other across a wide pedestrian walkway) and the overall site plan.   There are substantial common amenities, most notably a Common House that offers residents a variety of daily activities.   The design goal is to provide residents with many possibilities for friendly everyday contacts along with the privacy of their own homes.

For Shadowlake Village as for many cohousing groups, a parallel goal is to help people live more simply and conserve the earth's resources as much as possible through environmentally sensitive design and construction.

Cohousing started in Denmark in the 1970s as an urban residential model.   In the US and Canada, cohousing communities are urban, small-town, and occasionally rural.   There are now about 50 completed communities in the USA and Canada, and about 120 groups planned or under construction. The Cohousing Network website has more information on cohousing and a list of completed and developing groups across the U.S. and elsewhere.

A short history of Shadowlake Village Cohousing

Our project began in late 1997 as a small, informal group that met regularly and talked about starting a cohousing community in the New River Valley.   The group incorporated as New River Valley Cohousing LLC in 1999 and started to search for suitable land.   Early musings about cohousing illustrate why we persisted in this protracted effort.

In 2000 we bought 33 acres of land on Shadow Lake Road in Blacksburg, changed our name to Shadowlake Village Cohousing, and received zoning approval from the Town of Blacksburg to build 33 homes on our land.   Site development work started in May 2001; construction of homes began in August 2001, and the first residents moved into their homes in late December 2001 and January 2002.

Just over four years from initial meetings to the first completed homes is a great achievement for any cohousing group.   In summer 2003 our Common House was built, and two years after that, in summer 2005, all our homes had been built, sold, and moved into, and our community is built out.

Who can join Shadowlake Village Cohousing?

Membership is based on self-selection.   The cohousing experience is for people looking to live in a different way than the typical North American model.   It's for people who want to live more simply and who highly value having strong connections with their neighbors, but also want to own their own homes and retain their personal privacy in their homes.

When homes become available from time to time for resale, we highly recommend to interested persons to visit a few times, not just to fun events like dinners but also to community meetings, and see what it means to live a more intensely community oriented life than you might be used to.

Cohousing may turn out to really be just what you've been looking for, or you might decide that it's not for you after all, or not at this time.  Know what it is before jumping in!  If this seems like a possible future for you, you can arrange to visit us whether or not there is currently an available home.

What kinds of informal daily interactions did you design for?

Residents have many opportunities to meet one another while they're getting their mail at the Common House, strolling on the pedestrian walkway on which the houses all front, playing outdoors with their kids or their dogs, walking to their cars.   Spontaneous contacts between neighbors are easy because everyone lives within a short walking distance.

Based on their free time and their interests, residents may gravitate to the community's common spaces where they can read or chat, watch children play, garden, or stroll.   Residents who are enjoying being on their own front porch can easily interact with their neighbors who are walking by on the pedway.   We enjoy the life-enhancing daily experience of being around familiar people in a friendly and relaxed way.  

In a typical cohousing community, residents have dinner together a couple of times a week.   We're currently having two common dinners a week, one as a potluck meal and one prepared for the community by a cooking team that we take turns signing up for.   Participation is voluntary, as with all social events available to residents.   Click here to get a sense of the daily life of our community.

All this interaction... could it be more than I want?

There is no pressure to participate in activities that don't interest you.   You can be sociable, and you can be private, as your own feelings move you.   And when you are feeling sociable, you don't have to socialize with everyone!   You decide how much to interact and on what terms.

Cohousers are typically independent-minded people who very much enjoy friendship and the company of others but also value privacy.   Certainly, residents watch out for one another and have the security of being watched out for as well, for their safety and well-being.   A resident could not have an accident or fall ill in a cohousing neighborhood with nobody even knowing for days.   But you would determine for yourself the level of sociability that makes you comfortable and satisfied.

It's natural that people will feel more of an affinity to some of their neighbors than to others, and that individual friendships will form.   But there can be pleasant surprises when you get to know your neighbors better through many casual interactions and find unexpected affinities.

There is no group agenda or ideology in Shadowlake Village.   The glue that holds the community together is our common desire to live in this safe, friendly, supportive environment.

What are the common spaces?

In Shadowlake Village, they include a Common House, a plaza, two large community gardens, a "village green", pathways, and the parts of our 33 acres that are not and will not be developed, such as the woods and lower meadows.   The site plan shows where these are located.

The woods on 17 acres of our site is an important part of our common space.  It has wildflowers, footpaths, and mature stands of poplar, oak, maple, cherry, hickory, and ash trees, and is a lovely cool sanctuary in hot weather.   We are fortunate that our wooded acreage is directly adjacent to the 169-acre Brown Farm that was purchased by the Town of Blacksburg in 2000 and is now called Heritage Park.

Part of the meadows on our hillside are being renaturalized with wildflowers so we can pay back some of the debt we owe to Mother Nature for having developed this beautiful ridgetop.   Part of our open space has become a small entry park, and some is for gardening and other light-use purposes.

What is the Common House?

A cohousing Common House is a building, centrally located in the community, where residents can take occasional meals together, hold meetings and social activities, and have big- and small-group activities of all kinds.   They can sit there and read, chat with a friend, enjoy the view, and simply relax.   If there's a yoga class, a regular Tai Chi practice, a meditation group, a reading club, a playroom for kids, a movie night, (imagine many et ceteras), the Common House is most likely where it happens.

The Common House is something like a clubhouse in a condominium project, but this analogy is inadequate because most clubhouses look and feel like after-thoughts and are not typically used for community-wide socializing.   The Common House is an integral part of a cohousing project.   It is designed by the community's members to be as pleasant, welcoming, and multi-functional as possible.

Cohousing homes are typically smaller and simpler than most new American homes, and this is partly because the Common House provides for some typical private-house functionality such as a big multi-purpose room, a laundry room, and guest rooms.

The Shadowlake Village Common House has 5500 square feet on two stories.   The main level includes a mail dropoff/pickup location; a kitchen; a multipurpose room for eating, holding dances, play-readings, musical events, you name it; a smaller lounge with comfortable chairs and reading lamps that is also our library and committee meeting room; and a children's playroom.   There are porches and decks and beautiful views of the woods and the nearby mountains.

The lower level is only partially finished at this time, with laundry facilities for members' use and storage space for bicycles.   When it is completed, probably in 2006, it will include two guest rooms and a bathroom, plus whatever else we think we would like and that will fit into the space.

I understand this is a pedestrian-oriented community.

Yes, as with most cohousing projects.   The fronts of all the houses face on a walkway (we call it a pedway) designed for emergency-vehicle access but that normally will be a walking street only.   Children can safely play on the pedway, and residents walk on it all the time.   Roads and parking are kept to the periphery behind the back yards and behind the Common House.

Where will you park?   How do you get heavy items to your homes?

Parking is located on the periphery of the community.   There is an informal agreement about where to park based on how far your home is from a parking area.   When we reach the point where parking needs to be less spontaneous, each home will be assigned two specific parking spaces, unless their lot is one of those that has one or two parking spaces at the back of the lot.   Parking locations are indicated on the site plan.

When we need to bring heavy items such as furniture to our homes, we (or the delivery truck) are allowed to drive on the pedway to get to our house.  We require that any vehicle backing up on a pedway must have a spotter out on the pedway to make sure children, pets, and absent-minded members are not put in danger.

Is cohousing suitable for families with kids?

Cohousing is the ultimate kid-friendly and family-friendly environment.   Children can walk to their friends' houses from a very young age, because there is no street with cars - all the houses are on the pedways.   They can ride their trikes on the plaza in front of the Common House.

There are easily accessible play facilities that few families would have in their own backyards: a playground, an indoor playroom in the Common House, our own meadows to run on and woods to explore.   Also, our property is next to the 169-acre Brown Farm Heritage Park, one of the Town of Blacksburg's public parks.   Most of the park is an undeveloped nature park with walking trails and excellent bird-watching.

There is also a wonderful built-in community of other parents, and non-parents too, who keep an eye out for the children, mind them when parents need a quick respite, provide grown-up company and conversation, and help one another in many ways.

What about older folks, retirees, empty-nesters?

Cohousing offers independence in one's own home with easy access to support from your neighbors when you need it, in case of illness or difficulty.   Members can readily find a neighbor to assist with chores such as taking out the garbage, or to figure out what's going on with their computer or their washing machine.   This kind of neighborly concern and support can allow older people to live independently for much longer than if they were in a typical American residential situation.

Cohousing also offers a way for people who live in this area to bring their elderly parents to live near them in Blacksburg.  One benefit of such an arrangement is that the parents will not be overly dependent on their adult children for daily companionship.   The elders will make friends of their own in Shadowlake Village.   If entertaining has become difficult for them, they can have the pleasure of inviting their local family members, and the other friends they make in Blacksburg, to join them in the Common House for meals and socializing.

Are pets welcome?

Yes.  Many member households have cats and dogs.   We're currently drafting an agreement setting forth guidelines about keeping animals that will soon be brought to the membership for consensus.   Even without a formal covenant, though, we've agreed that the safety of residents and of other people's animals is of paramount concern, meaning that aggressive or dangerous companion animals are not acceptable.

People who move to Shadowlake Village from elsewhere will need to become aware of existing town ordinances regarding pets including such matters as where dogs must be kept on a leash, nuisance barking, and prohibited animals.   Other members who are pet owners can be very informative about both the legal requirements and our still-informal community norms regarding companion animals.

What are the houses like?

As is typical of cohousing, we were highly motivated to build as green as we could afford to, and designed our homes to incorporate super-insulation, tight construction, and energy efficiency.   The typically small houses in Shadowlake Village save on natural resources and energy use, and the clustered development of the site plan preserves green space.   Further, the site is only 1 mile from shopping and is close to schools, restaurants, downtown, Virginia Tech and other local employers, to minimize commuting.

We were fortunate that both our project builder, the Community Housing Partners Corporation (CHPC), and our project architect Bob Rogers and his firm, Architectural Alternatives in Blacksburg, were also committed to environmentally responsible site planning, home design, and building.

We worked closely with our architect to develop economical, highly functional, and attractive standard house plans. Click here to view our five standard plans.  A few of our single-family homes were custom designs, but most homes employed one of the standard plans that was most appropriate for their lot and their initial purchaser's needs, preferences, and resources.

See the site plan for the general layout of our community.   Our homes are a mix of detached houses; duplexed houses; and a row of four townhouses.  The styles are in the spirit of small-town and rural residential architecture of the 1920's through 1940's, when houses were typically small and were designed for both charm and efficiency.

Small-town houses of that era typically included big front porches, as do our houses.   But on the inside, we have modern plumbing, fully equipped kitchens, computer data lines for our home computers, and other useful items that weren't available in the 1920's.

I've heard you make decisions by "consensus".   How does that work?

Consensus is decision-making by unanimous consent instead of by a "majority-wins" vote.   At a meeting, a proposal is presented to the group.   Opinions are heard, conflicts are resolved, and members indicate Yes or No, or stand aside indicating that they do not agree but don't want to block consensus.

If someone says No, the ensuing discussion will focus on trying to understand that person's reasons and to seek agreement.   If the person simply can't accept the group's decision and has a reasonable objection, normally the proposal will fail.   There is a procedure available to override a single individual, but we have not needed to use it.   Members place a high value on achieving agreement when they see that their objections are taken seriously and that the group is trying hard to accommodate their viewpoint.

To facilitate coming to consensus on complex or contested issues, we use the full group to create an agreed-on set of decision criteria, which may take one or more meetings.   Then a task force or committee goes off to wrestle with the details and bring back a proposal that has had its rough edges smoothed out within the smaller group and that has been thoroughly explained along the way to the membership as a whole.   At this point the proposal should be acceptable to all members, and they will be likely to consense on it.

Not all decisions need to be consensed on by all the members.   The group has agreed that its committees and designated individuals may make certain decisions that are time-critical or are not at the level of significance to warrant full-scale consensus processing.

Consensus decision-making is very different from what most of us are used to, and creates a totally different group feeling than the much more common decision-making by majority vote.   We think that good meetings and good decisions are the results of good processes, and we do spend time trying to improve and refine our processes.   If facilitating meetings could be an Olympic sport, we think our facilitation team would be medal contenders, because they constantly work and strive to make our meetings more efficient, more productive, and more enjoyable.

Who's in charge of the community?

The community is entirely managed by its residents, within the limits of what is permitted by our zoning document that was approved in December 2000 by the Town of Blacksburg.   Resident design and control are fundamental aspects of cohousing, just as much as designing for community.

Community governance is via the Homeowners' Association and its covenants.   HOA dues are currently set at $72 per month.   It is our intention to keep the dues as low as possible but at a level which will permit us to build up a realistic contingency fund for predictable as well as unexpected maintenance, repairs, and improvements.   We don't know what the dues will be next year.   What we do know is that the decision will be made by consensus of the members.