Clachan Cohousing

We are developing a cohousing project, with a view to using land at Maryhill in Glasgow. http://clachancohousing.co.uk/ Cohousing is a model where a group of people build, develop and run their own community. Everyone has their own private home, but there is also a ‘common house’ where residents can come together to share activities and meals together as often as they want. Clachan Cohousing aims to self build our project using energy efficient construction techniques, and use renewable energy sources to create homes with low carbon footprint and low energy bills. We are developing sociocracy as a decision making process and we are also incorporating non-violent communication. The project will be accessible to people on different incomes, since we are using a Mutual Home Ownership model for financing. Residents will pay a 10% deposit towards the build cost of their home, and then pay 35% of their income towards paying off the equity. So everyone pays the same proportion of their income towards the project. And if residents decide to leave, they will get some of this back. So the model is neither buying nor renting, but somewhere between the two. More details here – http://preorg.org/mutual-home-ownership-and-its-suitability-for-small-co-operatives/ We are using a project called LILAC in Leeds as the model for Clachan Cohousing. We have visited their project and are in contact with them to learn how they did it. https://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk/communities/existing/lilac We believe that Clachan Cohousing fulfils a number of housing needs in Glasgow – it will create a small, self-supporting community, it will be accessible to people on a variety of incomes, it will be a self-built and self-managed project, the residents will assume full responsibility for ongoing maintenance and care, and the project will strive to be as energy efficient as possible. **2021 update** We have now registered as a Mutual Home Ownership Society with the FCA and we are negotiating purchase of a site.