An overhead view of the planned design for Treehouse Village. Photo: Treehouse Village Ecohousing website.
One of Atlantic Canada’s first co-housing communities has made progress in Bridgewater.
A year after securing land, Treehouse Village Ecohousing have wrapped up their design phase on how the co-housing village will look.
Treehouse Village will feature 30 private, energy efficient homes built in a clustered arrangement with community facilities such as gardens, greenhouses, a workshop and a common house.
“The common house will have space where we can have social meals from time to time,” She said.
“It will also have lounge area for people to have coffee with friends, a kids playroom, exercise areas and guest rooms too. This allows for folks to not have those spaces in their own homes, but still have access to those spaces when needed.”
Co-housing was adopted from a common housing practice in Europe, and has only recently made its way into North America with 14 spread throughout Canada. Currently, Atlantic Canada does not have a co-housing community as of yet.
They are working on their development plan for the village in anticipation of breaking ground this fall, and hope once work begins, they will wrap up and move in sometime in 2022.
However, there is still a lot to do in that time.
“We’ve completed the physical design of the community, but now we are working on developing how the social aspect of the community will look,” said de Vreede.
“How we’re going to care for the gardens together, safety rules for the workshop and how often we want to have common meals. Determining those things is what our members will be working on before we move in.”
There is also interest in a car share program among the members along with other ideas they are considering for the village.
While many of the 30 units have been claimed, de Vreede said there is still space available, and they are looking for anyone interested to join.
“Co-housing homes usually sell for at or slightly above market value wherever they are built,” she said.
“These homes will be designed to passive house standards, so really high degree of energy efficiency and a really good build quality.
The homes will be built in a range of one, two, or three-bedroom homes, which will cost between $230,000-380,000. Each unit will be sold as a condominium purchase, which entitles owner’s to their private home as well as any and all social facilities and services in the village.
More information, as well as updates on the village’s progress can be found here.
Follow Cody McEachern on Twitter at @CodyInHiFi.
