Remarque: cette page n'est disponible qu'en anglais

Professional Services

Cohousing professionals can include architects, developers, facilitators, development consultants, marketers, trainers, and others.

Creating a cohousing community is a big job!

Here's a checklist of qualifications to look for in a cohousing consultant, a project manager or a management team:
  1. Knowledge and experience in managing a development of the size and scope you're contemplating (check references, visit their existing developments - it would be very risky to hire someone who has never done this before).
  2. Familiarity with the municipal process for taking a project through rezoning to the building permit stage
  3. Ability to coordinate the work of the professional team and the general contractor
  4. Knowledge of how to create and manage budgets; the capacity to manage members' investment, apply for financing, and manage the flow of money throughout the project
  5. Understanding of the legal structure required for development and how to transition from that to home ownership once the project is completed
  6. Capacity to set up an organizational structure that supports member participation, and with the experience and comfort to facilitate the group's timely planning and appropriate decision-making throughout the process
  7. Good communication and organizational skills, able to be the liaison between the group and the regulatory authorities, professionals, financial institution, and general contractor.

credit: Cohousing Development Consulting

The following professionals are interested in providing services to forming groups and existing communities. The Canadian Cohousing Network does not screen professional listings in any way and inclusion here is not a CCN endorsement. We accept no responsibility for the consequences of hiring any of the professionals listed below. We strongly advise that you request and check references before making hiring decisions.

CDC Cohousing Development Consulting

www.cohousingconsulting.ca

Ronaye Matthew has over 30 years experience in residential development, marketing and construction.

She has provided start-up and development management services for most of the completed cohousing communities in Canada. Ronaye works with groups from the initial forming stage to move-in. She knows what it takes to support a group to ground their vision in reality and generate the membership and financial resources required to move forward and get the project built in a time and cost efficient manner. Ronaye is a founding member of the Canadian Cohousing Network and lives at Cranberry Commons Cohousing.

Christine D. Baker, Klaxon Communications

klaxoncomms.com

Christine writes the CCN newsletter and is the human behind the [email protected] email address. She has been an educator and writer for more than 20 years and currently writes, edits, and helps people and organizations do presentations and webinars.

Christine is formally trained as a historian, with a Ph.D. in History from The University of Texas at Austin (2013). She has been a professor and instructor for more than 10 years and has a wide variety of published academic works. She now lives in cohousing while she teaches at a college in the Vancouver area, helps CCN with their emails and newsletters, and does other writing and editing work.

Her background in education helps her assess the needs of diverse audiences and craft a clear and compelling narrative to convey ideas. She is accustomed to reading and editing the work of a diverse group of writers: from first-year undergraduates to graduate students to her own colleagues. This means that she is skilled at quickly reading through other people’s writing to assess clarity and effectiveness. (She’s also pretty good at spotting errors in grammar, spelling, and syntax.)

Contact her directly at [email protected] or through her website if you need writing, editing, or presentation services.

Cohousing Options Canada Non-profit Corporation

cohousingoptions.ca

Cohousing Options Canada is a 360º non-profit cohousing consultancy that assembles all the different ingredients needed to build sustainable cohousing communities.

We offer workshops, training, advisory, marketing and project development services leveraging expertise provided by our in-house team and through collaboration with local partners and international experts.

In addition to our core services we are working with the Community Wealth Fund to make cohousing home ownership financially more accessible through the creation of community loans and second mortgages.

CoHousing Solutions

www.cohousing-solutions.com

CoHousing Solutions provides development consulting and marketing services to help you create your cohousing community. Our team pioneered the development of cohousing in North America, and we have helped create dozens of successful, award-winning communities. Led by Katie McCamant, cofounder of the North American cohousing movement, CoHousing Solutions draws on over 30 years of cohousing experience, and is frequently the first professional that a group will hire. Katie offers consulting services on all phases of development including: group formation, site search/acquisition, project feasibility, development budgets, investments and loans, hiring and facilitating professional partnerships, design programming, homeowners associations, project/construction management.

Kathy McGrenera – Group Facilitator and Trainer

Kathy McGrenera is a co-founding member of Quayside Village Cohousing where she has lived for 26 years; her daughter Elise was a newborn when they moved in. Kathy recently worked as the group facilitator through the 6 year development processes for both Little Mountain Cohousing and Driftwood Village Cohousing, as well as facilitating meetings and trainings for many other cohousing communities over the years.  Working to find creative and collaborative ways forward, Kathy loves to work together with groups to plan engaging and interactive meetings when they are stuck or facing a tough issue, and also offers training in consensus, sociocracy, conflict resolution, facilitation, and many other cohousing topics. Kathy is currently working with Laird Schaub as a trainer with his 2 year facilitation training program and has collaborated in the past with Ronaye Matthew and Margaret Critchlow (see all their listings on this page). Feel free to contact Kathy: Phone: 604-980-7847, Email: [email protected]

Laird Schaub

communityandconsensus.blogspot.com

Laird’s work is rooted in 40 years of community living and 30 years of working with consensus-based groups. He’s worked with more than 100 communities, specializing in up-tempo meeting facilitation, conflict, and organizational structure. Key to his approach is welcoming the full range of human responses—including emotional, intuitive, and kinesthetic—in recognition that people know, process, and transmit information in a variety of ways. He’s pioneered a two-year facilitation training program that he’s delivered 12 times all across North America, to more than 100 students. There are currently new courses starting in BC, New England, and North Carolina.

Laird Schaub, 1014 Chester Park Dr, Duluth MN 55812
Phone: 218-724-3732, Email: laird@ic.org

Lois Chan-Pedley – Web Services – Front Matter Consulting

frontmatter.ca

Lois founded Front Matter in 2014 in Vancouver, BC, and prides herself on delivering great results through clear communication and a shared understanding of your needs and values. With 20+ years of experience in software and website development, having worked for the Government of Canada, startups, and the Space Missions Division of MDA, the strengths that Lois brings to the table are her deep technical knowledge and adaptability. We have key partners in the vast network of designers, developers, strategists and technologists in here the Pacific North West. Happy clients from past and present include: Our Living Waters, Triumph Acrobatic Arts, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, and the BC Greens.

Lois lives in cohousing with her husband, two kids and a dog, Gir.

Email [email protected] with your project ideas or book a time to chat!

Lysa Dixon – Mortgage Professional – TMG Averbach Mortgages

www.lysadixon.com

Lysa Dixon is a BC-licensed mortgage group professional with experience in obtaining mortgage financing for strata-titled cohousing in BC. She is also lives in cohousing, giving her valuable lived experience in cohousing communities.

Lysa offers knowledgeable and impartial advice based on her many years of experience as a mortgage professional. Different financial institutions and lenders offer a wide range of mortgage rates, terms, and conditions. Lysa can simplify this process for you and find you the mortgage that best suits your needs.

As your Mortgage Group Professional, Lysa will help you understand how different rates, terms, and conditions affect the lifetime cost of your home, your monthly payments, and financial flexibility. By presenting your requirements to a variety of Canada’s major lenders, Lysa can help you secure a mortgage at lower than advertised rates, usually within hours and most often free of charge (oac).

Phone: 604-817-1751, Email: lysa@averbachmortgages.com

Margaret Critchlow, Ph.D.

Margaret Critchlow taught anthropology of space and place at York University in Toronto, Canada for 25 years before retiring to Vancouver Island and co-founding the first senior cohousing group in western Canada, Harbourside Cohousing, where she has lived with her husband since it opened in Jan 2016. She was a founding director of the Canadian Senior Cohousing Society from 2011 to 2021. Margaret is a Community Building Facilitator with Cohousing Development Consulting. She teaches online courses for the Foundation for Intentional Community. She also offers workshops for new cohousing groups who want to build their membership and/or understand more about how cohousing can support aging in place.

Contact: [email protected]

Mary Kraus Architect – Cohousing and Participatory Design

www.marykrausarchitect.com

As one of the original cohousing architects in North America, I have worked with cohousing communities across the continent since 1990, in both English and French. From Cohabitat Québec in Québec City to Bartimaeus Cohousing in Washington State, I have helped future neighbors to articulate their goals, make design decisions together, and bring their dreams into form. I have developed an effective and enjoyable methodology for participatory design, collaborating with your local architect and facilitating design workshops with an approach that helps you build strong social bonds in the process of designing your community.

Ottawa Cohousing

www.ottawacohousing.ca

Ottawa Cohousing provides the expertise to build cohousing communities. Our Focus is to develop cohousing communities efficiently, cost effectively, and with environmental integrity. Our Goal is to facilitate healthy community formation, balancing diversity with shared values, and imparting skills for successful community longevity.

We gather individuals and households interested in cohousing. We match aspiring residents to each other and potential professional partners. We shepherd formed groups along the streams of development needed to acquire their site, design and build their community, form their governance structures and to foster group cohesion.

Our Team has comprehensive skills in coordination, management and facilitation, and a deep knowledge of the planning, development and building industries specific to urban infill in the Ottawa region.

Phone:613.724.3742, Email: info@ottawacohousing.ca

Sociocracy For All (SoFA)

sociocracyforall.org/

Sociocracy For All (SoFA) has been promoting the egalitarian self-governance approach known as sociocracy since 2016. We are an international member-run nonprofit with about 200 members from all continents except Antarctica. We have trained thousands of people in sociocracy, and consulted with organizations in sectors such as intentional community (cohousing and ecovillages), nonprofits, permaculture, worker cooperatives, schools, and IT. Sociocratically-run communities have increased from just a handful in 2016 to more than 250 worldwide. In Canada we have had formal and informal contact with many intentional communities and some other sectors; SoFA now has French and English dedicated Canadian liaisons*.

SoFA offers training, books, meeting facilitation and implementation support. Many free resources are available at our website, sociocracyforall.org, including videos demonstrating consent decision-making and how sociocracy works, as short as five minutes and as long as a one-hour intro to sociocracy. We also offer a monthly peer consultation group for cohousing and ecovillage groups who are using sociocracy. We invite people to sample this Community of Practice for a few sessions to see if we can support your practice of sociocracy. (Contact [email protected].)

Let us help you create more effective, joyful communities!

French-speakers, contact Audrée Morin: audré[email protected]
English speakers, contact Pati Beaudoin: [email protected].

The Cohousing Company

www.cohousingco.com

The Cohousing Company is a full-service architecture firm that specializes in designing Cohousing Communities. For over 30 years, the firm has designed state-of-the-art neighborhoods, including Muir Commons in Davis, California, which was the first Cohousing Community in North America. The Cohousing Company is recognized globally for their innovative approach to housing and has won numerous awards, including the World Habitat Award presented by the United Nations. The Cohousing Company offers workshops, trainings, and public presentations on cohousing, project feasibility and educational design, in addition to a complete range of architecture and design services.