Cohousing is a form of collaboratively planned housing. Cohousing communities consist of privately owned, fully equipped homes plus extensive common areas. They are designed and managed by residents who have chosen to live in a close-knit neighborhood with a healthy blend of privacy and community.

Currently, there are cohousing communities in Sacramento, Davis, Chico, Pleasant Hill, and 65 other cities across the United States. Twenty additional communities are under construction with 150 in the planning phase.

Legally, Nevada City Cohousing will function just like any other condominium development. It will have a homeowners association, shared grounds and common facilities. But unlike typical condominiums, cohousing is designed by the future residents specifically to foster a sense of community, which begins during the planning phase and will continue long after the ribbon cutting.

By giving careful consideration to the placement of residences, parking, walkways, swimming pool, play and garden areas, open spaces, and the common house, cohousing maximizes opportunities for neighbors to cross paths throughout the day. Cohousers often will eat supper together in the common house several times a week.

Cohousers typically represent a diverse cross-section of the population. Cohousers desire to live lightly on the earth and cooperatively with one another. Very few of the future residents of Nevada City Cohousing knew each other prior to the first orientation meeting, but new friendships have developed and deepened while working together toward a common goal.

Some people unfamiliar with cohousing may imagine a 60’s style hippie commune, but there is no similarity. Cohousing homes are like any other single-family, owner-occupied home, except they tend to be smaller, closer together, and more energy efficient. Each family has a private household and the common areas are managed through a homeowners association.

Cohousers encourage active participation in the life the neighborhood and there is an opportunity to share common meals several times per week at the common house.

The common house is the social center. It has been designed to include a kitchen, dining area, lounge, kids and teens rooms, guest rooms, music room, laundry, and mail room. An adjoining terrace and toddler’s play area will provide additional outdoor eating and gathering space.

This is currently a group of 23 families who have come together for the purpose of planning a neighborhood where they will each purchase a house. Instead of each family buying an individual lot and doing an individual house design, they are buying the land together and cooperatively planning the development to maximize open space and provide moderately priced, environmentally sensitive homes.

Most of the families already live in Nevada County. There is also a growing wait list of families who are in the process of becoming members. Nevada City Cohousing will have a total of 34 families.

Members range in age from 28 to 85 years of age. Cohousers are singles and couples, workers and retirees. Currently 13 families have children, from toddlers to teens, living at home.

Nevada City Cohousing Group, L.L.C. has contracted with The CoHousing Company to provide project management and design services for their project. The CoHousing Company, founded by architects Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett, has helped 29 other cohousing groups in the United States design and build their neighborhoods.

For more information about The CoHousing Company, please see www.cohousingco.com

Yes. We have an announcement email list that anyone can join. Just send an empty email message to
Nevada City Cohousing Announcements Email List

Nearly all of the 34 cohousing homes will be priced well below the average cost of current Nevada City houses. Houses range in size from 2-bedroom, 870 square-foot flats (estimated cost is $250,000 - $275,000) to 4-bedroom, 1700 square-foot townhouses (estimated cost is $410,000 - $450,000). Each house is privately owned and comes complete with its own kitchen and small backyard.

If you are interested in reserving a place on the waiting list, send a completed preliminary questionnaire (here) and a check for $100 per household to:

NCCG-LLC Waiting List
PO Box 1207,
Nevada City, CA 95959


(This check will not be cashed at this time but is only to establish your place on the waiting list. If you decide to get off the waiting list, your check will be returned.)

Call Dyann Castro-Wehr at 530-477-1375 or send-email to nccoho.info@nccoho.org

Nevada City Cohousing will be located on 11 acres at West Broad Street and Chief Kelly Drive in Nevada City.

Plans have been submitted to the city, and if all goes as planned, the move-in date will be by summer 2005.

No. The project also includes seven additional lots intended for single-family homes, each with a small secondary unit. These seven homes will not be a part of Nevada City Cohousing, but they will share a common driveway and parking area with the cohousing community, belong to a joint homeowner’s association, and have access to the big backyard for recreational purposes. Nevada City Cohousing will consist of 34 attached single-family homes, the common house, and the surrounding undeveloped backyard.

Selling these seven lots is critical to controlling costs for the cohousing families and meeting Nevada City’s affordable housing requirements for this parcel. Without the revenue generated by the sale of these lots and the sharing of infrastructure costs, the projected price of each home would exceed our current estimates. Most of the current members of our project would not be able to afford higher prices and would not be able to purchase the house they had helped design. Right now the projected price of nearly all of the 34 cohousing homes is below the current average cost of Nevada City houses. We can only keep our homes moderately priced if we can offset the cost of building them with the sale of these lots.

Not only will this keep the cost of cohousing within the means of our families, it will help Nevada City meet its affordable housing goals. Each of the 7 lots will accommodate not only a single-family home, but also a 506 square foot carriage house studio apartment above a detached garage. These apartments can provide the low-cost housing required by Nevada City.

In this planned development, many details complement each other. Besides the financial considerations, the seven single-family houses will present a typical Nevada City look, screen the parking and attached houses in the cohousing section, and increase security and safety in the parking area.

First and foremost, these homes are within walking distance of downtown Nevada City. The majority of people who visit Nevada City have to drive. People who live here can walk to the local market for milk and eggs, eat at local restaurants, patronize local shops, enjoy a show at local theaters, and attend churches while leaving their cars at home. In cohousing, walking becomes a way of life, as demonstrated by our willingness to keep our cars in a designated parking area 200-300 feet from our homes.

In an independent study done in Colorado, the Lafayette Planning Department determined that residents of cohousing make 25% fewer car trips than typical home owners. When you feel free to borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbors; when you have a baby sitter next door and your children’s favorite playmates just a few houses away; when your neighborhood includes the amenities that make your life comfortable and fun, you have much less reason to drive anywhere. In cohousing, social interaction and recreation can happen easily and spontaneously right within the neighborhood, with less reliance on our cars.

Yes. When you can walk to town in the same or less time than it takes to walk to your car, drive to town, find a parking place, and walk to your destination, there is an incentive to walk. A regular development puts cars as close to houses as possible. We prefer the advantages of having cars away from people and are willing to walk some distance from our homes to our cars to enjoy those advantages.

In addition, because of our desire to live cooperatively with our neighbors, we will naturally tend to share trips to local stores and other destinations, to order food in bulk to distribute among ourselves (a process that has already begun among the members of our group), and to rely on carpooling and shared vehicles to meet our transportation needs.

To enhance the capacity of existing city water and sewer services, Nevada City Cohousing will be paying for the improvements and upgrades deemed necessary by the city engineer. Members of the engineer’s staff have assured us that our project will have no negative impact on existing city services.

Like every development in Nevada City, our project must be approved for fire safety by the Nevada City Fire Department. All of our construction will exceed current fire safety codes and will include the installation of fire-suppressing sprinkler systems. We have ensured an adequate supply of water through both the Nevada Irrigation District and Nevada City Water District, and the swimming pool will serve as an emergency source of water in case of fire.

Approximately 60% of the property-the six acres that form our backyard-will remain undeveloped. Much of the terrain in this area has steep slopes created by hydraulic mining. By clustering our homes in a way that minimizes our impact on the land we preserve nearly 300 large trees and all of the most dramatic cliffs and convolutions of the diggins.

Some grading always has to be done to accommodate houses, driveways, and parking spaces and to optimize accessibility and visitability for people with disabilities. Grading for this project will be careful, minimal, and optimal since most of the buildings are clustered on the relatively flat northern part of the property.

All drainage from the property will be handled on site. A cross-culvert retention pond utilizing the existing wetlands at the upper end of the property will temporarily contain excess runoff so that no additional flow will result to downstream properties.

Every attempt will be made to minimize light pollution through low-intensity path lighting rather than standard street lamps. Outdoor lighting will not be directed toward other residences and will not increase the lighting intensity on surrounding residential properties.