Project 1 – in Warsaw
Hi, we are a group of people of different ages and we are planning to build ourselves a house. We would like it to be a multi-family building with private flats and common areas, adapted to our needs, cheap to maintain, democratically managed and open to diversity.
If you are interested, please take a look at our ideas. And if you feel that the values described on this page are close to you, please write to us (j.w.marcinkowska@gmail.com), call +48 504 837 335 or join our Facebook group. We are looking for people who would like to join us and make the world (the closest one, around us) a little bit better.
What do we want to do? A few words of introduction
The most general thing we can say is that we want to support the idea of community-led housing (cohousing) and thus get a say in how we live. And we plan to build a multi-family building in which we will live with or without our families (if we don’t have any).
The project can be divided into several stages:
- forming a cohousing building group or small housing co-operative
- agreeing on basic needs and expectations, what we want to build, form of ownership, where, with what materials, for how much, etc.
- decision on financing, talk to banks about credit
- buying a plot of land – with or without an abandoned building
- choice of architectural office
- work with an architect, create a design, obtain a permit for construction
- choice of contractor, construction of the building
- establishing property management principles
When?
In the future, when we are ready! We don’t have a specific date 🙂 It will depend on the expectations of the group members.
With whom?
With a group of a dozen people/families. We want a small building, consisting of up to a dozen flats. We would like the group members to be of different ages. Gender, religion, origin, social status are not important. The important thing is that we can cooperate and trust each other.
We would like the project to respond to:
Loneliness
Many of us are struggling with loneliness. We live alone or with our closest family, we don’t know our neighbours, communities are not being built in housing estates, social ties are disappearing, we can’t count on help from others. This is especially true for the elderly, who we will all be one day. We would like to to create a small but strong neighbourhood community that will support each other. This support may consist in spending free time together, helping to care for a child or during illness, or gardening together. That’s why we envisage a communal space in our building next to the private flats. The community will also be open to outsiders.
Concern for building quality, common spaces, building accessibility
Today’s investments are usually gated housing estates, often built almost exclusively for profit. They are deprived of common areas, not always made of good quality materials and with respect for urban space. We would like to take a more careful approach to these values.
It will be important to us that common spaces are created in the building while maintaining flats that guarantee privacy. Common areas may include: bike room, laundry room, guest room, integration space with cafĂ©/restaurant, cinema area, children’s room, work space. The building can have a roof terrace with outdoor gym, garden, playground. We can design a vegetable garden. It will be up to us to decide, we want to be creative and innovative 🙂
Our building can host a café open to people outside the community, we can run a small cultural activity or a shop with affordable food, or we can rent the premises to an NGO or use it for a small nursery, kindergarten or coworking. We can show that fencing off plots is not necessary for residents to feel safe.
We also would like the spaces to be barrier-free. We want intergenerational integration and people of different ages to join the group.
We intend to build with respect for public space, cheaply, but with high quality standards in terms of materials, aesthetic values, with care for the environment, in a sustainable way. We should take into account innovation, bold solutions (also in terms of ecology) that allow us to achieve high quality while reducing costs. This can be an area for experimentation and innovation. We would like to take care of using pro-ecological solutions, the presence of green areas, solutions influencing the sustainability of the building, its low maintenance costs.
Real estate speculation
We believe that everyone should have the right to housing and that real estate should not be subject to market speculation. They should be used for living, not for generating profit. We want to build to meet our own housing needs, not for investment purposes.
Rising housing prices
The experience od similar groups shows that the price for a flat built by cohousing groups can be up to 30% lower than the market price. Thanks to this, people with less money, a lower credit rating or who do not want to take on long-term financial commitments can also join a cohousing group. We hope that innovation (choice of materials, unusual technological solutions) will also have an impact on lowering the price. We encourage you to share your ideas 🙂 .
Or maybe we will find another model of financing our initiative, thanks to which affordable apartments would be created, in which people in a more difficult financial situation would live. We are exploring such possibilities and shared our thoughts on the blog.
The need for collaborative housing development
Currently on the real estate market we have basically two options. We can either buy a flat (many people do so using a long-term loan) or rent it (which is unfortunately not common in Poland nowadays due to high costs and insecurity). If we are in a difficult financial situation, we will receive support from the local government. We have no other alternative. We believe that this can change. Instead of buying a flat from a real estate developer, we can build a building cheaper, the way we want, with people we know and trust. The development of collaborative housing could lead to an alternative form of satisfying housing needs and, at the same time, fit in with the objectives of urban policy related to shaping high quality housing, densifying the city or increasing safety by building stronger social ties.
There are many examples confirming that such initiatives are successful, not only in housing. Such projects are known abroad as cohousing.
Climate change
We are aware of the enormous impact that climate change will soon have on people’s lives in cities. Deciding to build on your own leaves a lot of room for adapting the building to these changes. There is room for innovation, allowing for example for energy savings, introducing lots of green zones, shaded areas.
Suburbanization
We don’t like this process 🙂 Houses with a garden in the suburbs generate large costs (commuting, infrastructure) and have a negative impact on the environment. We want the city to be compact. We are keen to locate our house in central neighbourhoods so that there is no need for cars. However, we would be happy to put a bicycle parking area next to the building.
The cooperatives have the potential to develop plots of land that investors are not interested in, such as small, out-of-shape areas or adapting degraded buildings to their needs, for example adapting buildings that have not previously been used for housing. We want to take advantage of this.
Sustainable transport model in the city
We would like to limit the number of parking spaces (if compatible with the local plan) and cars owned. Cars can be shared by members of the group as needed. We would like to promote urban transport and cycling.
Who we are
Joanna Marcinkowska
Housing topics are close to my heart and the realisation of the project described on this page is a small dream. I hope it will come true! I am curious if you like the idea. Write if you do.
By the way, I am a legal adviser and I bring my legal experience as an intangible contribution to the creation of the co-housing 🙂
I am currently professionally involved in rail transport. I like foreign languages, books, pre-war modernist architecture, painting, European cinema, hiking in the mountains and cross-country skiing.
Kasia
I’m glad to see that older people are increasingly involved in cohousing projects. It’s great that they are determined to be active and independent for as long as possible, and to decide how they spend their old age. I would like local governments to support such initiatives and in this way help to combat loneliness, which affects older people the most. I love music, literature, film and my wonderful two cats. Let me add that I am an art historian, which is also my passion. I will make sure that there is no lack of art in our community 🙂
Krzysiek
I like the idea, especially the community aspect. I hope there will be more similar initiatives all over Poland! I am open-minded and optimistic about the world. I have many passions – I take astronomical pictures, I make music, I paint. I love travelling, forests, mountains, cycling and any other contact with nature. Let’s create a garden on the roof of the co-op building 🙂
