Tour the East Bay's most innovative, smallest, largest, and newest cohousing neighborhoods - with no driving - as part of National Cohousing Open House Day! Spend the day on board our exclusive charter bus, compare notes with other cohousing seekers, learn from residents of established cohousing neighborhoods, and meet the pioneers forming new communities in the area.

You'll save time and hassle, reduce your environmental impacts, and participate in a traveling workshop. Plus, we're serving lunch, providing refreshments, providing a map and context for each place we visit, and a roving community. Plus, we'll get to visit some spots not open for the open house day, as a bonus exclusive. And we'll provide a copy of Communities magazine for everyone on the bus.

Your hosts will be Cohousing Coaches Raines Cohen and Betsy Morris (right), regional organizers for Cohousing California. Together, they've lived in two cohousing neighborhoods, advised many, visited over 110, and served on national cohousing and communities-movement boards over the past two decades. They regularly conduct highly-rated cohousing workshops and seminars. They run the world's largest Intentional Communities MeetUp group, East Bay Cohousing, with over 4200 members.

Basic Info

• Date: Saturday, April 29, 2017 from 9 AM - 6 PM (approximately)
• Location: Starting and ending at Berkeley Cohousing and visiting half a dozen area communities.
• Cost: $100 per person, with many discounts available for cohousing residents, couples, triads, East Bay Cohousing supporting members, students, and groups. Includes transportation, non-alcoholic refreshments, lunch, and Communities magazine, plus an on-board workshop and guidance at each community, and the Cohousing Forum at Pleasant Hill Cohousing.
• Advance Purchase Required. If you have any trouble with payment via this page, please contact East Bay Cohousing at 510-842-6224.
• Limited Seating Available. No, we won't overbook or drag you out like United.
• All purchases are Final. The bus will not wait for you. If we know you can't make it and we have a waiting list, we may attempt to fill your seat and give you a refund if we do, but there's no guarantee.
• Children are welcome to join us. However, every tour participant must have their own seat, and you are responsible for supervising your children at each stop, and it may be a long, tiring day without nap time.

Itinerary

Please note that this schedule is subject to change as we juggle to include more communities and respect the schedules of resident hosts.

• 8:30 AM: Start arriving at Berkeley Cohousing for registration. Please DO NOT arrive before this time. Light refreshments and coffee will be available.
  
  Note: Advance Ticket Purchase Required - please don't bring extra unplanned guests. We'll post a note on this page and by email if there are extra spaces available at the last minute. Address will be shared in confirmation email when you get a ticket. Location is 5 blocks from North Berkeley BART, but please note that there will be a bus bridge between Lake Merritt and Fruitvale stations on the tour day, so please allow at least 20 minutes extra if you are coming from the Dublin/Pleasanton or Warm Springs/South Fremont lines.
  
  
• 9:00 AM: Please arrive by this time so we can begin the tour. We'll get to know one another and go over the plan for the day, and then tour Berkeley Cohousing.
  
  Note: This early time is for bus tour participants only; other National Cohousing Open House Day participants will not be welcome onsite until later.
  
  
• 10:00 AM: We board the bus and head off to Golden Gate Cohousing, the area's only all-rental cohousing, in North Oakland (near Emeryville). Afterwards, if time allows, may swing by a cohousing-style Tiny Home Village/Sustainability Center and the region's first cohousing neighborhood, and/or another area community.
  
  
• 11:15 AM: We stop at Kingfisher Cohousing on Brookdale, a re-forming community that has homes for sale. The community is gradually adding members as long-term renters move out or join in.
  
  
• 12:00 PM: We get back on the bus and zip over to Temescal Creek Cohousing, the area's best-known Retrofit Cohousing ("N Street Model") community, where members gradually knocked down fences between existing private homes, and later constructed a Common House. If we're on schedule, we'll have lunch here.
  
  
• 1:15 PM: Back on the bus to head "East of the Hills" to visit the area's first new-build greenfield community, Pleasant Hill Cohousing. Take a walk around and then gather in the Common House to hear from community members in a cohousing forum at 2:30 PM.
  
  
• 3:30 PM: We will zip out of the forum (no dilly-dallying!) in order to make it to the newest area community, Phoenix Commons, the area's first senior cohousing, right on the Bay, where homes are still available for sale. We'll wrap up here with an informal reception with reflection on the day.
  
  
• 4:30 PM: Back on the bus for the last time, as we return to Berkeley Cohousing by 5 (traffic allowing). Please note that the community will not be available for further touring at this time.

Access

We want everyone to feel welcome on our tour. However, we were not able to obtain a wheelchair-accessible bus, so getting in and out will require climbing and descending a few steps and navigating a narrow aisle to your seat. Please do let us know about your access needs so we can make arrangements for you either on this tour or a later trip.

Note that visiting several cohousing common houses and homes will require climbing and descending several steps, and walking up to a quarter mile per community.

Some homes may require that visitors remove shoes to enter, so please bring easily-removable footwear if you don't want to get delayed.