Cohousing Bristol

CoHousing Bristol is a small,urban cohousing project in South Bristol within easy reach of the city centre.

We are currently in the process of creating a cohousing community on our site, providing socially, environmentally and financially sustainable housing and shared community facilities for our members.

Our current membership is 5 directors, 4 of whom live in the farmhouse and 3 new soon-to-be-directors, who live elsewhere. There is also a changing cohort of twenty-somethings who rent rooms on a shorter term basis, they are encouraged to be involved in the life of the community, but are not part of the main decision making processes. They do add a great deal to the variety and energy of the place.

Building is expected to start late 2019 on 7 housing units for sale to members. Two of these are still free to new members, and we are looking for families to take them.
The houses will be 2 or 3 bedroom, and build to passivhaus standards.

There will also be access to shared gardens with bike stores and sheds and facilities in the farmhouse. These are currently a big shared kitchen, a big living room and a flexible room used as an office, for exercise and as an informal guest room. We hope to use some of the rooms freed up by directors moving into the new builds to create more shared facilities - what we can afford and what we would prioritise are not yet resolved but we would hope to have some of the following: guest room, laundry, library of things, storage.

Some background:
CoHousing Bristol is a company limited by guarantee and was originally set up in 2001. The group bid for various properties or parcels of land unsuccessfully before acquiring our current site.
In 2010 we bought a property consisting of a stone-built farmhouse and just under an acre of land. It was in need of extensive renovation, and we moved in in 2011 after working on it for a year.