The Real Deal

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Living closely with neighbors

A recent meeting of the Brooklyn Cohousing group. They are in the early stages of creating a community and finding a place to live.

In 2006, Alex Marshall and his wife, Kristi Barlow, had been living in their Prospect Heights apartment building for over a year — and, like many New Yorkers, still knew almost none of their neighbors.

Being socially inclined people, they thought this was strange, but remediable. They decided to host a holiday party for their fellow tenants and slid invitations under the doors of the building's 25 other apartments.

Marshall whipped up a batch of eggnog using his great-grandfather's recipe, strung up colored lights, and, on the day of the party, waited for guests to arrive. But except for the one couple they already knew, no one came.

That lonely party inspired Marshall to begin giving serious thought to his long-held idea of forming a cohousing community in Brooklyn.

First created in Denmark in the late 1960s, cohousing communities are developments where residents live in private homes, but have common areas where social activities like meals are shared with neighbors. Similar to co-ops and condos, cohousing communities make decisions together on issues like building maintenance. But since they have, in general, much more interaction with each other, more personal issues like a parent's style of discipline, if it's affecting another child, might also be discussed.

Since Marshall's epiphany two years ago, plans for the city's first cohousing community, incorporated with the state in February as Brooklyn Cohousing LLC, have been gaining momentum.

There are now more than 100 cohousing communities across the United States and roughly the same amount in some stage of planning, yet Marshall's is the only one in New York listed with the Cohousing Association of the United States.

The next step for Marshall's group is to create a place to live.

Marshall said each of his group's equity members is looking to spend about $600,000 for a two-bedroom apartment. In total, the community may spend anywhere from $15 to $35 million.

So far, five households are equity members, which means they've invested 5 percent of the estimated cost of their new apartments, and 20 additional households are associate members, with a smaller amount invested as expressions of interest. Before joining the group, each member must be preapproved by a bank for a mortgage.

According to the Cohousing Association, statistics indicate that only one-fifth of the people who participate in the design phase of forming a cohousing community ultimately end up living there once it's built.

The Brooklyn group has looked at dozens of properties, mainly development sites with approved plans for condos and some warehouses.

Finding the right building hasn't been easy, yet the city's stagnant market may favor Marshall and his group. He said several developers are looking to unload preapproved projects they can no longer finance. For their part, banks appreciate that most of the apartments would be sold beforehand.

The equity members, by consensus, would make the ultimate decision of where to buy, with the associated members in an advisory role. Because they would be buying en masse and most likely acting as their own developer, members hope to pay about 15 percent less than market rates for individual units.

So far, Marshall said their favorite site is Carlton Mews, a development project in the preliminary stages of construction in Fort Greene. Plans for that building call for roughly 40 apartments. The project is within a historic district a block from Fort Greene Park; a courtyard and two churches built in the 1880s could easily be converted into a dramatic common area.

One of the development partners, Mark Wallach, said, "We've only had some very, very preliminary conversations." He declined to reveal the price discussed but said it would have to be high enough "to compensate us for the stage where we're at in the development."

Wallach added, "Frankly, we're intending to develop the property. We've just closed on it a couple weeks ago, and the market for construction financing is getting better."

Members of the Brooklyn group include singles, couples and families with children. Their ages range from the late 20s to late 60s, and they generally work in high-paying creative fields.

At Brooklyn Cohousing's May meeting, the group discussed whether Carlton Mews, which has more than the ideal number of apartments for a cohousing community, would need to be reconfigured.

Generally, between 24 and 36 households makes for optimal consensus decision making. However, larger communities have worked in other places, and the apartments would be less expensive as currently configured.

Another proposal was to create two separate communities. But the idea has no precedent, and several members said they were saddened by the prospect.

A final option, which would maintain the optimal size of the community and keep costs down, has been dubbed the "fat cat solution." This plan entails buying the Carlton Mews and then re-selling some of the apartments facing Carlton Avenue and Adelphi Street on the open market for a higher amount than a member would pay.

Regardless of which project is purchased, apartment rates would be 10 percent lower for the first fifth of the members who joined than the last fifth, increasing in increments of 2.5 percent. Marshall said early members pay the least because they take on the greatest risk, do the largest amount of work and have the most expenses.

Dawn Eng attended the May meeting of the group and is wavering about signing on. She said she was attracted to the members' environmentally friendly beliefs. Eng and her husband, both architects, aren't sure if they want kids of their own, but Eng said they are attracted to the "intergenerational" makeup of Brooklyn Cohousing.

Eng, who currently owns two apartments in Kensington, said affordability could prohibit her from joining.

Even though they don't live together yet, the group still meets in Brooklyn each week. Their meetings begin with an assessment of each member's day. Honest answers like "pissed" and "my teenager is driving me nuts" are expected. While they speak, children weave in and out of the circle.

"It can take a long time for adults to get used to living in cohousing communities, even extroverts," said Chris Scott Hanson, a cohousing developer and consultant. "Kids, on the other hand, get it in about five minutes."

Hanson said disputes among residents are common and usually have four main sources: parenting styles (strict vs. laissez faire), pets (whether they should be allowed), pesticides (Should communal meals use foods prepared with them?) and parking (how many spots residents should be entitled to).

Marshall didn't have an answer yet for how those problems would be solved, since this group does not intend to reserve the right to approve or expel residents. That would eventually be discussed and decided on by consensus, he said.