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.
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.
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.
creativeplanit.com
Creative PLANit is a full service design studio, specializing in branding and marketing services for companies and associations of all sizes.
With over 20 years of experience, Creative PLANit is a one-stop shop for all your marketing and promotional needs.
Our services include:
- Website design and development
- Social media presence and marketing
- Marketing collateral (brochures, flyers, posters, business cards, you name it!)
- Fair, trade show and event promotional material (signs, booth branding)
- Promotional apparel (T-shirts, hats, promotional products)
Contact us with your inquiries, we’ll be happy to work with you in creating and producing a unique marketing strategy for your community: info@creativeplanit.com
www.facdarchitects.com
Fitch Architecture and Community Design (FACD) is one of the most respected and experienced cohousing firms in North America. Laura Fitch discovered her interest in cohousing while studying in Denmark in 1980. As 25+ year resident in Pioneer Valley Cohousing, she offers unique insight into the group dynamics that affect the design process.
Cohousing and sustainable living / design are what Laura has chosen both personally and professionally and she brings great enthusiasm and inspiration to FACD’s work with communities. We offer everything from short consults and design programming workshops to a full range of design and development services.
Contact: info@facdarchitects.com
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
www.livewellcohousing.ca
Gary Morrison helps new cohousing communities plan, finance and build their community – following a step-by-step process of development management: from early group formation, land acquisition and design team selection through approvals, financing, hiring a construction contractor and launch. Gary has worked in the development sector for over 25 years and specializes in helping non-profits, public sector agencies and cohousing communities launch new projects.
Please review the LiveWell “Bootcamp Manual” for more information on how to launch your community, and contact Gary Morrison for additional info.
Contact: hello@LiveWellCohousing.ca
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: seniorcohousing@gmail.com
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.
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
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 audree.morin@sociocracyforall.org.)
Let us help you create more effective, joyful communities!
French-speakers, contact Audrée Morin: audrée.morin@sociocracyforall.org
English speakers, contact Pati Beaudoin: pati.beaudoin@sociocracyforall.org.
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.