PORT TOWNSEND — About 5 miles from downtown, a particular kind of residential development is being imagined: Newt Crossing, where eight homes and a common house are part of the plan.
The wooded 17-acre parcel, off Sand Road and not far from Blue Sky Drive, could be Port Townsend’s next cohousing village. It’s also the subject of a presentation by internationally recognized cohousing architect Charles Durrett at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Quimper Grange, 1219 Corona St.
Admission to the two-hour program is free.
When it comes to the concept of cohousing — private homes plus lots of common space — “most people talk themselves out of it before coming to the table,” Durett said in an interview from his office in Nevada City, Calif.
In his presentation, the architect involved in more than 50 North American cohousing communities will discuss how Newt Crossing could take shape.
It would be a place where 16 or so residents share meals, gardening, child care, elder care, carpooling and other activities, he noted.
Durrett was part of the construction of Quimper Village, a senior cohousing community completed in Port Townsend in 2017. The condominium complex was created by 28 households, he said, “and what they did was phenomenal.”
Newt Crossing is likely to appeal to young families and older people, Durrett predicted. It’s typical for cohousing owners to invest about 20 percent of their home’s value before they move in, something like a down payment, he added. Though he hasn’t calculated costs for Newt Crossing, he estimated that 20 percent could amount to $60,000 to $80,000.
He hopes people who are interested in cohousing — but lack that kind of money — will keep their minds open.
“The most important thing,” Durrett said, is “the immense amount of creativity that goes into making it work. Sometimes people find the down payment kind of foreboding. But when eight households put their heads together, hire the right mortgage brokers and hire the [creative people] they need,” he said, he’s seen them “manage to make miracles happen, over and over again.
“The aspect I like the most about planning cohousing communities is people end up knowing each other and caring about each other,” as the project progresses, Durrett said.
Those who attend his presentation at the Quimper Grange and want to see the Newt Crossing property will be invited to a walk on the land at 11 a.m. Sunday. Directions will be provided at Saturday’s talk.
The property now has two homes and a large garage on it, according to newtcrossing.org, the prospective community’s website.
Jonathan Boughton and Eva Holm write that they purchased the property in the late 1990s, “with every intention of creating a sustainability-focused community where families could raise their children and grow old together. Raising two boys and sharing the land with a variety of friends kept them busy,” they write, “but the organizational structure to create legal sharing community was never present.”
Now the owners are working with Durrett and his consultancy, the Cohousing Company (cohousingco.com). In addition to its website, Newt Crossing has a Facebook page and a phone number for voicemail messages, 360-328-1192.
“These new kinds of neighborhoods where people have started out to consciously create a high-functioning community are critical if we are to begin to dampen global warming,” Durrett writes in the announcement of Saturday’s program.
“Come learn what it’s like to imagine and co-create such a neighborhood.”
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Jefferson County Senior Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
