East Bay Cohousing - Berkeley/Oakland/Emeryville/SF

swans solar.html

Cohousing Magazine sidebar: Free Solar: The Swan's Story

When we moved into Swan's Market Cohousing in 2000, we were excited about being pioneers in urban sustainable living. We were reviving and preserving an abandoned historical market building, practicing urban infill and revitalizing a historic walkable downtown neighborhood, Old Oakland.

Energy efficiency was a high priority for the group. In preparation for the "value engineering" process, in which the builders propose elements of the project to eliminate or alternatives to save money, we had ranked various elements, and our shared hydronic hot-water system ranked high, driven by values around both quality and efficiency. When the builder proposed that we use electric baseboard heat instead, we were ready with a quick response: stick with the hydronic, even though it added more than $10,000 per unit to the prices. When a member found a new technology that might be able to support future individual metering of water, heat and hot water, the group didn't take long to approve spending more on plumbing upfront to make it possible.

After move-in, the community wanted to put in a grid-tied solar-electric system to power the Common House and our common heat pumps and lights and reduce not just our energy bill but our environmental impact. However, even with state and federal tax credits and rebates, it would cost more than $4,000 per unit up front. We knew that some members would have difficulty coming up with that kind of cash on top of their regular HOA dues and mortgage payments, so we rejected the idea of imposing a special assessment. We also faced increased reserve contributions and therefore increased dues to save for eventual replacement of our system, given the expected lifespan of some system elements.

One member kept pursuing the concept with a passion, and others had business savvy, financial acumen and connections. This potent brew led to us finding a third way, where two plus two did equal five: A solar installer had a business setting up Limited Liability Corporations (LLC's), with member-investors with large passive incomes in California, who could get the maximum benefit from the solar tax credits. The group (working with our nonprofit developer and owner of the rest of our building, the East Bay Asian Local Development Co. (EBALDC)). We would buy the system on time, paid for by the electricity it generated. A win-win for the community, and the environment.

Upfront cost to the group: zero. Reduction in electric rates: immediate.

Page title	Most recent update	Last edited by
Fort Awesome	November 27, 2011 12:35 PM	Raines Cohen
Summer Sublets	May 11, 2011 4:13 PM	Raines Cohen
Doyle Street	May 5, 2011 4:34 PM	Raines Cohen
Golden Gate Cohousing	January 11, 2012 10:59 AM	Jeff Billings
Eastlake Cohousing	March 31, 2011 10:46 PM	Raines Cohen
Oakland Morehouse	June 9, 2011 10:35 AM	Oceana Lott
MultiCoho	December 27, 2010 9:22 PM	Raines Cohen
Churcha Soul	August 5, 2010 2:41 PM	Raines Cohen
Berkeley Town House	July 10, 2010 8:08 AM	Betsy Morris
Group Houses and Co-ops	December 24, 2011 12:37 PM	Raines Cohen
Established Cohousing Neighborhoods	November 28, 2011 2:51 PM	Betsy Morris
Forming Groups	November 28, 2011 6:05 AM	Betsy Morris

See all pages

Berkeley, CA

Founded Oct 22, 2003

Read more about us…

Future Neighbors and Cohousers
1,525
Group reviews
108
Upcoming Meetups
6
Past Meetups
559
Our calendar
Optional supporter dues

$100.00 /yr; $250 for groups/sponsors
Follow us

We're about:

· · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

Organizers:

Optional supporter dues

$100.00 /yr; $250 for groups/sponsors

This covers: Supporting members get event discounts, Cohousing Coaching, a book, introduction

Payment is accepted using:

Amazon Payments
Cash or check - “at meetings, tours, workshops and other events that we put on (but not at our partner events that we sometimes cross-post here).”

Your organizer will refund you if:

Your organizer closes their Meetup Group
Your organizer removes or bans you from their Meetup Group

Close this

Imagine lively people-scaled communities dotting the San Francisco Bay Area - places co-created by their residents for raising kids, for retirement, for growing food or simply living well by sharing more. The Bay Area already has ecovillages, and cohousing neighborhoods, resident-owned housing cooperatives, and group houses -- real world places where we can live more sustainably through a more cooperative way of life. You can have both privacy and community when you know your neighbors on purpose, in day-to-day relationships based on common vision and values.

East Bay Cohousing (EBCOHO) is a Bay Area-wide MeetUp. We connect a wide variety of kindred spirits and resources. We support individuals wanting to learn more, forming groups looking to create community together, and members of existing communities. We are mostly in the East Bay and San Francisco; others are from the North and South Bay, Los Angeles, Nevada, and other parts of the US and Mexico.

There are over two dozen cohousing communities in the greater Bay Area, (more cohousing in Oakland than any other U.S. city). There are also dozens of other emerging and long-established intentional communities. EBCOHO members have recently bought or rented homes in cohousing neighborhoods and cooperatively owned apartment buildings in Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland , Pleasant Hill, Grass Valley, Santa Rosa, and Nevada City. We have members living in Swan's Market Cohousing, Triple Point, Temescal Commons, Berkeley Cohousing, Parker Street Coop, Berkeley Town House, Addison Court Coop and established forming groups like East Lake Cohousing (formerly North Oakland Cohousing).

Extra bonus for 2012: The National Cohousing Conference is coming to town in June!

We host EBCOHO events for members, and link you to other events featuring a global network of friends and allies: pioneers in cooperative culture and sustainable communities: urban farmers, affordable housing developers, green builders, and creative visionaries in the movements for more open, user-friendly and collaborative technologies, economies, and governments. There's a global reinvention of communiies going on - both on the ground and online -- and the Bay Area is one of the world's epicenters.

EBCOHO has more events than our MeetUp-based home page can show fully, so please click on our Calendar to see more. Join for free to get involved! There's no charge for basic membership, but supporting members get discounts on some events, including socials, and workshops, cohousing books, and Cohousing Coaching.

Join us for an orientation, for social events, discussion, talks with exciting speakers, and hands-on workshops to learn the tools for developing good group relationships, and the real estate development process.. Find others who share your vision for supportive neighbors. Do it for yourself, for your family, for your parents, do it for the Earth! Make 2012 the year to deepen YOUR community connections.