MILWAUKEE – If you walk along Humboldt Boulevard in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, you’ll notice chainlink fencing has gone up around the site of the former Big Daddy’s BBQ & Soul Food and before that the Milwaukee Beer Bistro:
Prep work has begun on a unique real estate development in the City of Milwaukee: a cohousing community named River Trail Commons. While it would be a first-of-its-kind concept for Milwaukee, five cohousing arrangements can be found throughout Madison, which are part of the roughly 200 such living setups that can be found throughout the U.S.
The idea of cohousing originated in Denmark in the late 1960s. Cohousing.org defines the concept with six common characteristics: connected relationships, a smaller footprint, private homes, common spaces, participation, and shared values. Where the idea of cohousing differs from a co-op housing setup is that houses in a cohousing setup are owned by the resident much like any other private property, but with the addition of shared spaces and activities. Specific to River Trail Commons, shared facilities plans have included a geothermal heating/cooling system, a shared electric vehicle, and a common garden space.
“In co-op housing…the entity owns the real estate, and the members are residents,” says Milwaukee attorney and River Trail Commons “project instigator” Nola Hitchcock Cross. One example of this is the Riveredge housing coopeartive, which Hitchcock Cross herself started in the 1970s.
“Cohousing is individual ownership, and one of our big goals with River Trail Commons is to address the family wealth gap in home equity that resulted, in large part, from illegal deed restrictions that were valid up until the late ’60s in the Milwaukee area.”
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Hitchcock Cross tells me her team has been wending their way through all of the necessary City of Milwaukee approvals for the project, all of which she says have been resolved in their favor. One of the concerns that has been addressed includes underground parking access; Hitchcock Cross says that issue was resolved by utilizing the alley off Center Street east of Humboldt as the entrance to the planned lot.
“We are committed to really focusing on folks who don’t own cars, and for those who do we have deeded underground parking” says Hitchcock Cross. The property is zoned for parking at 0.5, meaning there are half as many dedicated spaces as there are people living in the 39 planned units.
Hitchcock Cross says in addition to targeting car-less individuals, the project aims to offer a housing alternative to first-time and first-generation homebuyers feeling priced out of the market. According to Realtor.com, in July of 2024 the median listing home price in Milwaukee was 219,900 dollars, trending up 15.8% year-over-year. Of the 39 planned units, 13 will be sold at below-market prices to those who meet income restriction requirements.
“If you’ve owned a house, you know that one thousand things go wrong all the time,” says Hitchcock Cross. “In cohousing, we’re all in it together, so if something needs to get done, it’s going to be addressed by everybody. We’re not alone to deal with everything that goes wrong by ourselves.”
She adds that the concept of cohousing lends itself more to social interaction and helping out your neighbors with their daily routines. In 2020, ten studies were published in Public Heath Reviews that analyzed the impact of cohousing on physical and mental health or quality of life and well-being, of which eight out of ten found a positive association. The study added, however, that “because housing is a major social determinant of health, more evidence is needed on the impact of this model on health through both psychosocial and material pathways”.
For those who want to sell a cohousing property, the process works very similarly to any other home sale. The difference, Hitchcock Cross says, is that the person interested in buying the property must buy into the concept of shared resources and spaces. An orientation process is usually a precondition to a sale.
Groundbreaking on River Trail Commons is anticipated sometime in 2025, with the hope to complete the development the same year. Price estimates for the cohousing units are not yet available.
Prospective residents interested in learning more about the project are invited to attend an informational meeting at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, September 14th at the Gordon Park Pavilion, 2828 North Humboldt Boulevard.
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