Become a neighbor
If you are considering living at Katywil, or any cohousing community, the houses are only one consideration. Lifestyle and your thoughts about living in community are equally important. We think community living is the best way to live a quality life, but it’s not for everyone. See Are we a good fit? To ascertain mutual compatability, we have a membership process to help you know what life at Katywil is like, what you are looking for, what responsibilities we have to each other, and if it feels right. We welcome new members who share our vision and want to participate in creating our community.
Diana Leafe Christian wrote a book about forming a community, which has been central to Katywil’s development. She also wrote Finding Community, about joining an intentional community. It covers “how to research, visit, evaluate and join the community of your dreams”. We highly recommend it for your search.
Explore Katywil
Participating in work and social gatherings is the best way for all of us to get to know each other and to ensure that we are a good match. As part of our membership process, we encourage you to find the events that interest you, and attend as many as you can. Our monthly business meetings are especially informative. Please contact Nancy at 413.624.3040 or nancy@katywil.com to attend an event or meeting.
If you sign up for our newsletter, besides Katywil news, we will invite you to upcoming potlucks, meetings, work parties, and other events. You can also like us on Facebook to get little snippets of daily life.
Are we a good fit?
We’ve formulated a list to help you consider whether our community and cohousing would be a good match. It’s meant to be used as a discussion tool with your family and to help formulate questions. If you agree with most of the statements in this list, living at Katywil might be just the place for you!
Roadmap
We are all coming from different places and have different visions for our future. This is a good thing, because a sustainable community needs diversity, however, our visions also need to be compatible. We found that visualizing the future tells us volumes about ourselves, our partners, and each other. We recommend that you and family members create a vision of what it will be like to live at Katywil first.
Vision Exercise:
Write about a day or life in general at Katywil after you’ve lived here for 5 years, each family member do your own. Go for what you really dream about; you don’t have to show the first draft to anybody; go to a place you filed away under “that could never really happen”. Write in the present day: 2017. Do NOT spend more than 15 or 30 minutes on it. Be specific, descriptive, and add details. Remember it’s not HOW you are getting there, only about what your life will be like in 2017.
Financial incentive
The first ten lots are already sold, under agreement or have a deposit. We are offering an incentive for the remaining two lots in Phase I. Anyone who purchases them before March 31, 2012 will receive a $10,000 price discount.
Housing costs are about the same in cohousing as in conventional living situations, but living expenses are reduced because people car pool, share work and commonly owned equipment/infrastructure.
Picking a lot
Houses at Katywil are clustered, each with its own deeded lot, on approximately 3/4 acres. However, Katywil comprises 112 acres so each lot owner also has a 1/17 share of the remaining acres, including managed forest, open meadows, woodland trails, agricultural land and some community structures (common house, barn, greenhouse, other TBD). There are two lots still available in Phase I. Please contact Nancy at 413.624.3040 or nancy@katywil.com to set up a time to see and discuss.
Building a home and Cost
Homes will be based on the design goals of energy and space efficiency and reduced carbon footprint. The houses have been sited on a south facing slope for the best solar access, and bermed into the hillside.
There are several options for building your home:
1. Katywil designed 2-bedroom, or 3-bedroom house.
The 2-bedroom Katywil Mini House is ~1060 sq. ft. The house including the lot, shared land and some shared infrastructure is $295,000. With discount offer (see Financial incentive above), total cost is $285,000. Houses can be customized for additional cost. We have suggested guidelines and a design review committee that considers proposals that include changes to the exterior.
The 3-bedroom Katywil essential house is ~1350 sq. ft. The house including the lot, shared land and some shared infrastructure is $395,000. With offer (see Financial incentive above), total cost is $385,000. Houses can be customized for additional costs.
Designed to be very low maintenance, Katywil houses are clad in HardiPlank, which has a 15-year paint, and 50-year performance warranty, is non-combustible, resists rodents, mold, cracking, and is environmentally friendly.
The walls are a foot thick, filled with dense-pack, blown-in cellulose, and rated R-45. The roof is also cellulose-insulated with an R-value of 65. Windows are low-e, argon-filled, and triple-glazed to provide maximum passive-solar access and cross-ventilation.The large south-facing, passive solar windows look across to Stone Mountain and southeast to Catamount. The roof eaves are designed to be cool in summer and warm in winter.
Each house is caulked during construction to be airtight. Air leakage is tested using a blower-door test after the exterior walls and windows are complete. Any air leaks that appear during this test are sealed.
2. A 2-family house
We are working to have 2-family homes approved in Katywil. We are excited about this opportunity. If this seems like a good option for you please discuss your idea with us. All homes at Katywil need to have similar energy efficient features as the Katywil Mini and Essential Houses. Contact us for the latest scoop on this.
3. A house that you design and/or build.
Do you have a unique house design in mind? You may also build a house yourself or have it built according to your own design. We have suggested guidelines and a design review committee that considers proposals to ensure that your needs are balanced with the community’s focus on green building techniques and materials, quality, energy and space efficiency, and how the house will fit into the environment and neighborhood.
