NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Cohousing communities are gaining popularity across the country, including right here in Music City. <\/p>\n
Diana Sullivan gave News 2 a tour of her cohousing development located in Germantown. <\/p>\n
She has lived in the community for about a year-and-a-half. <\/p>\n
Sullivan said she first learned about the concept of cohousing while attending a conference in Boulder, Colorado, in 2010. <\/p>\n
It is an intentional community. We decided we wanted to have a community that was structured in a very high functioning way because research shows that these communities are very healthy and very thriving, Sullivan explained. <\/p>\n
In Germantowns cohousing community, everyone buys their own home, but they share common spaces. <\/p>\n
There is a playroom for children, a kitchen to enjoy meals together and extra rooms that the homeowners in the community can reserve for visiting family and friends. <\/p>\n
We have community dinners a couple of times a week. A couple of households will become a cook team, will set our menu, buy our food and then host the dinner, said Sullivan. <\/p>\n
By sharing meals the group is able to cut costs. <\/p>\n
They are $5 or $6 a meal, and it is incredible food, said Sullivan. <\/p>\n
Dot Dobbins also lives in the community. She said after her husband passed away in 2008 she began researching different living arrangements because she did not want to be alone. <\/p>\n
Dobbins met Sullivan and decided she wanted to be part of the community. Dobbins told News 2 her grandchildren love where she lives and that they enjoy visiting her and playing in the courtyard. <\/p>\n
Last spring and summer we had butterflies all over. It was great, it was lovely, Dobbins recalled. <\/p>\n
When this community started there were 15 families interested in living in there. Now, there are 25 families in the cohousing development. <\/p>\n
When you have housing that is constructed in a way that is supportive of people to reduce poverty, homelessness, reduce alcoholism and drug addiction and its just the housing structure and you can implement that its huge, said Sullivan. <\/p>\n
In the United States, there are about 160 cohousing developments. The one in Germantown is the first of its kind in Tennessee. <\/p>\n
Currently, there is a lot of momentum to build more of these types of developments in Nashville. <\/p>\n
Sullivan told News 2 there is a waiting list of about 650 people who would like to move into the Germantown community. <\/p>\n
She said an additional list of 350 people is interested in developing these types of communities in other parts of Middle Tennessee. <\/p>\n
The national conference on cohousing will be held in Nashville this May. <\/p>\n
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