Genesee Garden Cohousing

We are the first group of people living in cohousing in Lansing, Michigan (the first members moved in Aug 17, 2003).

Unlike most cohousing developments, we are a retrofit co-housing (also called infill cohousing) group. We've purchased several individual vintage homes (circa 1920) surrounding a small open space at the end of a dead-end street. We've landscaped this central space into a lawn, vegetable garden, paths, flower beds, and planted several trees and shrubs. We are renovating and otherwise modifying the interiors of our homes to suit ourselves, but eventually will also change porches or doorways of some houses to re-orient their typical use towards the common space (a cohousing design principal). One of the central houses, now renovated, has become our common house, open for meals, meetings, socializing, etc.

In the meantime, we share dinner meals typically weekly, swap childcare hours, garden together, celebrate happy occasions and share sad events together, help our (non-cohouser) neighbors, and plan and build the community we want for our future.

Genesee Garden Cohousing currently consists of 6 households, and we have purchased 8 houses, on site. Our diverse neighborhood is very walkable, bikeable, bus-able, near parks, LCC, downtown library and businesses. Houses regularly come up for sale in our neighborhood, and there are also usually rental opportunities. To learn more about us, see our entry on ic.org. If you want to come by for a look, or meet more of us at one of our dinners, please contact hamlinmi (at) yahoo (dot) com

To learn more about cohousing, get the book, go to www.cohousing.org, or best of all, go to an organizing meeting or tour of a cohousing community near you!