PDX Commons & Cully Grove
The drive to Portland from Eugene, while one of our shortest, felt taxing as we started seeing signs for our home base, Olympia. Our month on the road began to urge us back to the comfort of our friends and warm beds back home, yet there were a few more things we needed to do before completing our mission. Once we neared Portland, we found a free campsite an hour away and get some rest. The next morning, it was back to Portland to interview Jim Swenson, a co-founder or as he likes to say a "Commoner" of PDX Commons. This cohousing project is still in the works, so it was beneficial to get the perspective of someone in the planning and building process of shared housing. The project in part, is being designed to create a community style of living geared towards elderly residents who have lived the “American Dream” to some extent and now in their old age, are affected by its failures and lack of forward thinking. As Jim describes it, the idea for this cohousing unit sprang from the experiences of elderly parents who were in denial of needing to move from a big empty house with too much space, into a community setting where they could help themselves and their neighbors increase their quality of living.
Quoting their website, Pdxcommons.com, “Studies show that highly social settings serve to counter social isolation, which becomes common as we get older. Social isolation has many bad effects on health, mental state, esteem and longevity of life.”
By localizing to an urban city such as Portland, the residents have more accessibility to resources such as food, friends, and medical attention. Transport is also a major draw to the city for these residents, who have developed a plan for housing that has easy access to the bus line and places that are in bike able distances.
Aside from being close to resources, the planners of PDX Commons are additionally creating a building that has a LEED Platinum level certification. They plan for a 4 story building with 25-30 units available. The building will take advantage of sunlight in a courtyard featuring an urban garden, which utilizes storm water harvesting and bio soil for optimum efficiency. As Jim and his partners are still in the planning process, this building will leave roof space pre-designed for the future implementation of solar panels, which are increasingly becoming more cost efficient. When addressing human waste, we learned that the use of composting toilets wouldn't be realistic in a 27 unit building in the city, but that they intend on implementing low-flush toilets, which are lower impact than most general septic systems. Their design plans also make space for a grey-water piping system to be utilized on the first floor. Forward thinking at its finest! It was really inspiring to speak with Jim and see his blueprints for this building as we got a chance to exchange knowledge about designing sustainable structures in urban areas and pick his brain about codes and realistic goals for the future. We look forward to seeing the real thing once it's built in January of next year.
Following our meeting with Jim, we headed over to a housing community called Cully Grove, a multi-generational, solar-powered garden community. We had a great time connecting with the residents and the children there. We made it in time to catch a community meeting held in their common house centered on the opening of a new park in the neighborhood and a festival for its grand opening. This housing development makes it a goal to include surrounding community members on new projects. It was a great example of how community members can realistically have their own living spaces while still reaping the benefits of communal living with a shared garden, bee-hive, chicken/duck coop, play area and communal kitchen space to utilize within the property. We also took a look into the start-up process here and discussed some difficulties of the planning and developing periods. Additionally digging into some of the harder questions on the availability of living in a community such as this for people of all economic standings. Low impact living often times involves high initial costs which are prohibitive to lower income brackets. As rat racers, it makes more "sense" to continue consumptive living practices than to adopt a low impact lifestyle.
Speaking with Jim from PDX Commons
Cully Grove
Soph envisions her future plans to raise chickens
Sparking an interest
Any amount of food grown at home is a good amount
Where do you have fun?
