A Totnes housing scheme that encourages greater communal living is in danger of being shelved unless it can find more people to sign up to it.
The Baltic Wharf Cohousing Group has yet to find enough occupants for its planned purpose-built community on the riverside site.
Now Baltic Wharf’s owners, TQ9 Partnership, are to run a marketing campaign to try to recruit more members for the group.
Cohousing is a cooperative style of living where people have their own homes but also share facilities.
Space for up to 27 houses plus a large common house has been set aside on the Baltic Wharf site for the group. Cohousing members will manage a kitchen garden and a sustainability living centre. Group members have worked with Baltic Wharf’s team to shape the design of the scheme based on their specific requirements.
TQ9 Partnership expects the application for planning permission for Phase One of the Baltic Wharf development, which includes the cohousing scheme, to be submitted in the next few weeks.
Cohousing is a common in northern Europe and North America. However, the Baltic Wharf scheme is the first in the UK to be planned as part of a larger development.
Laura Keely, one of the founding members of the Baltic Wharf Cohousing Group, said: “Regrettably, we have not been able to recruit sufficient of our own members so the site’s owners, TQ9, are taking on further marketing from this point onwards. TQ9 are very keen to make the cohousing work and be a valuable part of the development, as has been intended from the start.”
Steve Mittler, managing partner of TQ9 Partnership, said: “The cohousing scheme is an important part of our plans and, with detailed designs nearly complete, prospective members can get a clear idea of what it will be like. We want to do all we can to help the group find the remaining members it needs.”
Find out more about Baltic Wharf’s co-housing.
