CAMBRIDGE COHOUSING
175 Richdale Avenue, Cambridge MA
Our Community
Cambridge Cohousing opened in the winter of 1998. It has 41 units from townhouses to studio apartments and a large common house with many amenities. It also has several unique green spaces unusual for an urban development. See Facilities/Homes for more information.
We are a group of people of diverse ages, backgrounds, abilities, professions and lifestyles. We are committed to creating a neighborly and cooperative community in which we know and care about one another. Children play safely, surrounded by neighbors, and know that caring friends are close by. We value the vitality, convenience and diversity that is Cambridge, as well as each cohousing resident. We support one another through life-events such as new babies, milestones, illness, and hardship. To learn more about our goals, please read our Values Statement.
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Governance
For the first 18 years, our community used a consensus decision-making system, along with policies and guidelines developed over the years. Recently, we have begun an evaluation and review process with a goal of balancing more autonomy for areas of responsibility with the shared value of inclusiveness in decision-making, our goal being to make decisions more efficiently without losing the value of hearing everyone’s voice. To this end, we have adopted some of the principles of Sociocracy, or Dynamic Governance (used by several cohousing communities) along with our own brand of governance. You can learn more about sociocracy at sociocracyforall.org.
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We are structured as a condominium association. You can learn more about cohousing and cohousing communities at cohousing.org.
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