What is Cohousing Woodside about?

Have you ever dreamed wistfully of a friendly old fashioned neighbourhood where people know their neighbours, exchange the time of day and lend a helping hand occasionally?  This is what Cohousing Woodside is working to promote.

We are a group who are planning a cohousing community of some 30 homes in the north-west corner of the old St Luke's Hospital land, in Muswell Hill, a site shortly to be developed by Hanover Homes mostly but not entirely for people over 55.

Singles and couples, still working or retired, with kids still at home and not, Cohousing Woodside members will have their own homes around a shared garden. We have designed into the complex a 'Common House' which will operate as shared space where members can meet for coffee, eat together occasionally, run meetings, hold parties, organise book and film groups and other activities. We will manage Cohousing Woodside ourselves and as a community will remain quite distinct from the other 130 homes or so planned for the St Luke's site. This doesn't mean we won't be friendly neighbours to the rest of the site - far from it. 

Cohousing Woodside members will have the advantage over other newcomers to St Luke's in already knowing each other as prospective neighbours, having met regularly each month for a year or two to plan their community and to eat together. We intend to use our Common House to organise get-togethers for St Luke's new residents in the first few months as they move in, so that they too have informal opportunities to meet and get to know each other. 

Anyone who is interested in say, down-sizing or looking ahead to when they will be more in need of a friendly, helpful neighbourhood, is invited to come to one of our meetings to check us out. Our membership is growing rapidly but we are still, in November 2014, recruiting new people so that all our units are purchased in advance of completion, which is planned for some time in 2017. In the meantime, we are talking together about how we want to live, how to keep firm boundaries between personal and shared space, what we would like to do to the garden, etc.

Take a look at our website for further details.

http:/www.cohousingwoodside.co.uk