Harbourside cohousing community with waterfront view and docked boats.

Harbourside Cohousing

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Established
  • Home-sharing
  • Town/Small City

Founding year

  • 2011

What we do

Harbourside Cohousing’s mission is to be a sustainable senior cohousing homeowner community that promotes healthy aging in place. The physical structures as well as the social fabric of our community nurture an innovative culture with lively connections to the larger society. While respecting personal privacy, we foster cooperation, social connection and affordability through design and through mutual support.
Our 2.7 acre waterfront site in downtown Sooke, BC includes 31 strata-titled homes in 3 duplexes, 3 fourplexes, a three-storey apartment building. A beautiful resort building was adapted to reuse as a 4,000 sq ft Common House. We have land for gardens, additional indoor and outdoor common spaces, and a commercial-style wharf offering moorage to residents’ boats.
We developed our community to be affordable, aesthetically pleasing, environmentally friendly, and socially/culturally supportive, allowing members to flourish through mutual support (co-care) as we actively age in place and in community.

Our Mission

Senior Cohousing

  • Purpose
  • Home-sharing
  • Community type
  • Cohousing

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2011
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2016
  • Started living together

Video

  • 22 Total members
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
22

How to join

Harbourside’s legal structure is the same as a conventional condo (Strata in BC). Community members work with sellers to encourage purchase of the units by people seeking cohousing.

Basic expectations or agreements for members

  • If you are interested in a tour of Harbourside, please email in**@*********de.ca to negotiate a date/time and reserve your place. Tours are by donation. Please see our Visitor Information Sheet.

Primary decision-making authority

  • Small Leadership Group

A few people (not elected by the broader community) make the major decisions.

Decision-making process

  • Full Consensus

Everyone must agree before moving forward.

Governance structure

  • Collaborative/Horizontal

Power and responsibility are shared relatively equally among members.

Economic model

  • Independent Finances

Members maintain separate personal finances with minimal sharing.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • Members need to pay fees, dues, or similar to live there on a per month or per year basis
  • There is a labor obligation
  • Members typically need to have their own job or other personal source of income to cover their expenses while living in the community?

Additional economic information

Regular fees: $343
Labor: Encouraged or suggested

Shared resources and amenities that are accessible to everyone in the community

Common House, Garden(s), Library, Workshop, Outbuilding(s), Fire pit, Waterfront access, Gym or sports area

Frequency of communal meals

  • About once a week

Significant food acquisition practices

  • Locally sourced

Substance use culture

  • Substance use appears in public spaces but no pressure
  • Substance use is prohibited in the community

Gender composition

  • Majority cis (over 60%)

Age demographics

  • Mixed adults (few or no children)

Property status

  • Privately owned

Property owner

  • By a single individual, couple, or Family Trust

Setting

  • Town/Small City

Smaller municipalities with local services but rural character.

Community type

  • Cohousing

    Private homes with shared common facilities, designed for neighborly
    interaction while maintaining independence.

Self-produced energy

  • Up to 33%

Energy sources used

  • Photovoltaic Solar

Self-produced food

  • Up to 33%

Local, organic, or fair trade food

  • 33 - 66%

Food systems

  • Community garden

Waste management practices

  • Reuse or repair systems
  • Land area size
    2.7 acres

Guest Book

Written reviews are available for plus members. Click here to upgrade.

Location

  • British Columbia, Canada

Harbourside Cohousing

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

Offer
Offer
  • Real Estate For Sale
7 days ago

Co-housing Unit For Sale in Portland Oregon

Light-filled 976 sq ft, 3-bedroom, 1-bath end unit in Columbia Ecovillage, Portland’sestablished cohousing community in the Cully neighborhood. With windows onthree sides, this ground-floor home gets natural light all day, even onPortland’s grey ones. The open living and dining area has warm hardwood floors and flows into akitchen with solid wood cabinets and granite counters. The dining roomwindows look straight into a native vine maple — a wall of green from springthrough fall. There’s good storagein the unit, plus an extra storage space in the community storage building.A ductless mini-split provides efficient heating and air conditioning, andthe plumbing was fully replaced in 2026. The primary bedroom has a full-width closet behind a sliding barn door; thesecond bedroom’s closet sits behind a pair of French doors. The thirdbedroom has no closet, which makes it a flexible room — guest room, office,or playroom. Step out the sliding glass door onto your own covered patio, which opens onto the community grounds: organic gardens, personal garden plots,greenhouses, a grape arbor, a bamboo grove, native plantings throughout, andtrees everywhere — including a truly massive old black walnut. The orchard alone is a reason to live here — to name a few:apples, pears, plums, figs, mulberries, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes,blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, in several varieties each. A75,000-gallon rainwater catchment system keeps it all watered through thesummer. Kids have a playhouse, sandbox, small soccer field, a favorite climbingtree, and a parking loop where bikes can circle but cars can’t; adults havea workshop, garden shed, fire pit, quiet space and big community porches. The common hall is the heart of the village: a commercial kitchen anyresident can use, a kids’ play area, pool table and ping pong, and asoapstone stove that burns every winter evening. Residents can reserve it forevents for almost nothing. The historic farmhouse has guest rooms owners canbook for visiting family (about 30 nights a year). Shared laundry rooms(three washers and dryers) come with indoor drying racks and outdoorclotheslines, and there’s a craft room and a trade room where things you nolonger need find a new home next door. Potlucks, communitymeals, work parties, and acres of safe space for kids to roam makethis a rare chance to own a home and a neighborhood at the same time. Built in 1973 and fully remodeled in 2008–09 for energy efficiency and healthy indoor air — metal roof, HardiePlank siding, and standard community-built finishes throughout. Nothing to update, nothing deferred. The $522 monthly HOA coverswater, sewer, and garbage, plus the roof, siding, exterior paint, and allstructural maintenance — and it’s what pays for the grounds, the common hall,and everything else described above. And it’s close in: Cully’s cafés andparks are a short walk or bike ride away, the rest of Portland’s food,music, and neighborhoods are minutes beyond that, and the commute downtownor to the airport is easy by car, bus, or bike – 3.7-acre grounds with organic gardens, personal plots, greenhouses, native plantings, and mature trees (huge black walnut)- Orchard: apples, pears, plums, figs, mulberries, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries- 75,000-gallon rainwater catchment feeds the gardens year-round- Workshop, garden shed, fire pit, quiet space, community porches  

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