Raines says: This regular monthly community tour and open house of the East Bay's biggest and most "suburban" cohousing neighborhood, Pleasant Hill cohousing, the only "new-build" classic cohousing community in the region, the largest in the East Bay, and a lovely community.

Note that this is not an official MeetUp run by East Bay Cohousing, but we will pass along RSVPs that come in here.

Every first Sunday of the month. CURRENTLY VIRTUAL - DO NOT COME TO THE SITE WITHOUT PRE-ARRANGEMENT FOR PROPER PROTECTION.

Visit Pleasant Hill Cohousing's page on the EBCOHO MeetUp for more info, links, and current openings.

If you need to cancel your reservation, or decide not to go, please let Pleasant Hill's volunteer tour guide know as soon as possible!

Individual Homes

There are 32 units, grouped in various configurations ranging from 2-6 homes per building. The buildings were constructed with wood framing, stucco outer walls, and corrogated metal roofing. The smallest units are 640 sq ft one-bedrooms; the largest are 1579 sq ft four-bedrooms.

Each home has its own kitchen. The homes are owned individually as condominiums, with some rentals.

Common Areas

Our 3,835 sq ft Common House contains a kitchen, dining room ("great room"), sitting room, laundry, kids room, teens/older kids room, crafts room, guest rooms, and bathrooms.

The Common House is the only building in the project that has air conditioning. However to minimize the use of air conditioning, the building also has a cooling tower with large fans that can be used in the evening to pull cooler air into the building and push hot air out.

Other common facilities include swimming pool, hot tub, play area, workshop, bike shed, organic garden, and granite boulders from original site - both decorative and used by children for climbing.

Location

We're conveniently located near Highway 680 and public transportation, with easy access to Walnut Creek, shopping, and recreation.

Pleasant Hill, population 32,000, is located 30 miles east of San Francisco, 4 miles north of the I-680/Hwy 24 interchange. Mostly a residential community with scattered retail/commercial areas, it is bounded by the cities of Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Concord, and Martinez. Pleasant Hill has recently (2000) redeveloped its downtown to create a contemporary shopping district just blocks from the site. In addition, an abundance of good restaurants and shops are within easy driving distance. The city has good recreation programs for all ages and regional walking/biking trails traverse it.

Iron Horse Trail

A walking and biking trail - the Iron Horse Trail (so named because it's on the old Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way) - runs alongside the site and connects to the Pleasant Hill BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station (~1 mile) and downtown Walnut Creek (~4 miles). The 24-mile trail goes north-south from Concord to Dublin and connects to several other trails that traverse the county making for great biking opportunities.

A neighborhood park is located just the other side of Fair Oaks Elementary School adjacent to the site. Briones Regional Park and Mt. Diablo State Park are located nearby providing numerous opportunities for hiking and recreation. There are several health clubs in Pleasant Hill including the YMCA.

Diablo Valley Community College and JFK University are located in Pleasant Hill, and there are several city and county adult education programs in the area.

There are multiple venues nearby for movies, theater, music and other performing arts including the Dean Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, the Willows Theater Company in Concord, and the Concord Pavillion.

There are farmers markets in Pleasant Hill (May-Nov) and Walnut Creek (year-round). Several community members participate in a CSA farm, Terra Firma Farms, with a weekly delivery of locally grown organic fruits and vegies made even more convenient because we are the drop site. 

Raines says: This regular monthly community tour and open house of the East Bay's biggest and most "suburban" cohousing neighborhood, Pleasant Hill cohousing, the only "new-build" classic cohousing community in the region, the largest in the East Bay, and a lovely community.

Note that this is not an official MeetUp run by East Bay Cohousing, but we will pass along RSVPs that come in here.

Every first Sunday of the month. CURRENTLY VIRTUAL - DO NOT COME TO THE SITE WITHOUT PRE-ARRANGEMENT FOR PROPER PROTECTION.

Visit Pleasant Hill Cohousing's page on the EBCOHO MeetUp for more info, links, and current openings.

If you need to cancel your reservation, or decide not to go, please let Pleasant Hill's volunteer tour guide know as soon as possible!

Individual Homes

There are 32 units, grouped in various configurations ranging from 2-6 homes per building. The buildings were constructed with wood framing, stucco outer walls, and corrogated metal roofing. The smallest units are 640 sq ft one-bedrooms; the largest are 1579 sq ft four-bedrooms.

Each home has its own kitchen. The homes are owned individually as condominiums, with some rentals.

Common Areas

Our 3,835 sq ft Common House contains a kitchen, dining room ("great room"), sitting room, laundry, kids room, teens/older kids room, crafts room, guest rooms, and bathrooms.

The Common House is the only building in the project that has air conditioning. However to minimize the use of air conditioning, the building also has a cooling tower with large fans that can be used in the evening to pull cooler air into the building and push hot air out.

Other common facilities include swimming pool, hot tub, play area, workshop, bike shed, organic garden, and granite boulders from original site - both decorative and used by children for climbing.

Location

We're conveniently located near Highway 680 and public transportation, with easy access to Walnut Creek, shopping, and recreation.

Pleasant Hill, population 32,000, is located 30 miles east of San Francisco, 4 miles north of the I-680/Hwy 24 interchange. Mostly a residential community with scattered retail/commercial areas, it is bounded by the cities of Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Concord, and Martinez. Pleasant Hill has recently (2000) redeveloped its downtown to create a contemporary shopping district just blocks from the site. In addition, an abundance of good restaurants and shops are within easy driving distance. The city has good recreation programs for all ages and regional walking/biking trails traverse it.

Iron Horse Trail

A walking and biking trail - the Iron Horse Trail (so named because it's on the old Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way) - runs alongside the site and connects to the Pleasant Hill BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station (~1 mile) and downtown Walnut Creek (~4 miles). The 24-mile trail goes north-south from Concord to Dublin and connects to several other trails that traverse the county making for great biking opportunities.

A neighborhood park is located just the other side of Fair Oaks Elementary School adjacent to the site. Briones Regional Park and Mt. Diablo State Park are located nearby providing numerous opportunities for hiking and recreation. There are several health clubs in Pleasant Hill including the YMCA.

Diablo Valley Community College and JFK University are located in Pleasant Hill, and there are several city and county adult education programs in the area.

There are multiple venues nearby for movies, theater, music and other performing arts including the Dean Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, the Willows Theater Company in Concord, and the Concord Pavillion.

There are farmers markets in Pleasant Hill (May-Nov) and Walnut Creek (year-round). Several community members participate in a CSA farm, Terra Firma Farms, with a weekly delivery of locally grown organic fruits and vegies made even more convenient because we are the drop site. 

Free, discount and subsided training on effective Aging in Community

An East Bay Cohousing service in development

Made possible by a grant from People's Life Fund
And your member contributions

In our work helping people find and create community, we often discover that the people who most could benefit from senior cohousing can't afford the initial workshop series that we offer to get it started. We want to increase the number of communities, not by going for the traditional "easy" market-rate homebuyers, but instead fostering diversity by getting groups going and linking them to established area programs that can make housing and community more affordable.

So we plan on taking our proven "Aging in Community" curriculum, adapted from the Danish national "successful aging" curriculum, and offer classes at no cost and by donation for groups identified through area senior centers and the group that we helped incubate, the People of Color Sustainable Housing Network (POCSHN), or with scholarships for seats at our general workshops (whichever approach turns out to be more more effective and inclusive, under POCSHN's guidance). We know that we don't have all the answers, and we aren't the world's experts at what works well for different people, so we'll be looking for ways to support what's underway from groups working in these areas, like the Northern California Land Trust (NCLT) Co-ownership Initiative.

The traditional course format is a 10-week workshop, but we have learned from trying out other styles, and based on recommendations from POCSHN and prospective attendees we plan to offer a version of the course that best meets their needs for time and location, and which includes paid POC guest presenters and activities that help make it clear some of the paths and resources and attitudes that have led to meaningful change and opening up new options.

This effort will be led by EBCOHO co-organizer and Cohousing Coach Raines Cohen (left), a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and Certified Sage-ing Leader (CSL). He trained with Chuck Durrett in the initial classes based on the Senior Cohousing handbook (upper right), and wrote about Senior Cohousing and related movements in the book Audacious Aging (below right). He serves on the board of Sage-ing International.

We are pleased to announce that People's Life Fund has selected this project as one of its 2021 grantees. This is the second time that EBCOHO has received a PLF grant; the first, several years ago, helped us create the Squirrel Fund, funding some of our initial legal work, partnerships, and outreach for a new way of helping keep fixed-income seniors living in community as costs rise, and to keep their homes affordable after their deaths.

Why this matters now: We have been offered the opportunity to bring a community to a site that could have people in a new neighborhood near BART with new, designed-for-accessibility homes priced less than a third of what even old homes that need work cost in Berkeley. We want to make sure that people who don't already own homes here (or historically were excluded from homeownership or priced out of it) have a better shot at it, and also to be ready to help people who have the least make the most of the opportunities for "build in place" community that Berkeley's new proposed legalizing of 4-plexes will create.

Might this be relevant for you? Make sure to tell us about your interests.

Funded in part by War Taxes Redirected by the People’s Life Fund.

Here’s what’s happening in the world of cohousing around Oakland, California.

Please pay close attention to whether listed events are virtual or in-person, and if the latter, what precautions to observe; in many cases, advance RSVPs are required to attend.

For years, EBCOHO members have asked us how they can buy property and create affordable cohousing and cooperative communities here in Berkeley and Oakland.

Well, the time has come --- both cities are considering a new Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) which will make that more possible than any time in the last 25 years!   TOPA means tenants will get notice from landlords before their building goes on the market, and can band together to make an offer, or designate a community partner to negotiate on their behalf -- and then be eligible for public funds. 

Berkeley, like the rest of the Bay Area, faces a housing crisis, one driven by rising rental prices and a hot housing market. With 75% of the city’s low-income census tracts at risk of or undergoing displacement and a continued loss of thousands of Black households, Berkeley desperately needs anti-displacement strategies that prioritize low income renters and communities of color. One of those strategies is the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA).

TOPA prevents displacement by empowering tenants with choices for their future housing when the owner of a rental property decides to sell (learn how it works here!). In Washington, DC, TOPA has helped preserve over 3500 units of affordable housing since 2002, and those numbers continue to grow. 

Berkeley’s TOPA policy is designed to:

• Prevent displacement of low-income communities of color and marginalized tenants

• Create permanently affordable housing

• Create pathways to ownership for tenants and promote democratic residential control

• Stabilize housing for existing tenants

• Give tenants choice and voice regarding their housing

• Protect rental housing from speculative investment by keeping them in the community

Now is the time for Berkeley to pass a TOPA policy that helps meet Berkeley’s housing crisis and needs. 

We can’t do this without you. Raise your voice for TOPA today!

Sign below by Wednesday night and we’ll include your digital signature in our attendance at a council committee meeting discussing TOPA this Thursday. Not sure yet? Want to help recruit others? Join our Zoom call Wednesday at 5:30 PM.

EBCOHO Supporting Member Group Kingfisher Cohousing will have 2-3 homes available for rent later this year.

 This is an in-person open house with a real meal & workday, NOT virtual.

We have 2 or 3 apartments turning over in the coming months, ready for new members! A one bedroom apartment will be available for rent in October, and we're anticipating a 2nd one bedroom and a three bedroom in six to twelve months (the 3 bedroom is definite, but the timing isn't nailed down yet). Come join us at this real, in-person open house, see our cohousing community and tour the apartments.

This is an opportunity to and learn more about this cohousing project, an EBCOHO Supporting Member Group. Please check the group's website for more about the community and the apartment, and more pictures:

http://www.brookdalecommons.org/

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The Open House:

Potluck lunch at noon (bring food for yourself if you're not comfortable sharing yet). Bring a mask, but you don't have to wear it when outdoors. Keep in mind that not all of us are vaccinated, so only come if you're comfortable with mixed company. We're fine with you, whatever your vaccine status!

Two apartments will be open for a tour at 1:00 PM. Please stick around in the afternoon to help us work in the garden, and get to know us.

We appreciate EBCOHO RSVP's but drop-ins are welcome too, if you make last-minute plans. If you get a chance, fill out this form on our website : http://www.brookdalecommons.org/finance/ and tell us something about yourself. Call for a private tour if you can't make it on Sunday, or come next month. We almost always host an open house on the 2nd Sunday of each month.

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About Our Community:

We are currently a community of five households with the potential to
grow to 9 and to create a common house.

We have thrived in the time of Covid because we could always gather to socialize in our beautiful courtyard. This has been wonderful in this challenging time, keeping us from being isolated, especially those of us who are single and working from home.

Even in this urban space there are lots of places to grow flowers and food. The bees and hummingbirds love our garden, and we're growing tomatoes, figs, cucumbers, squash, string beans and peas.