Historic brick building with green accents and lush trees in front.

Water Birch Co-op

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Established
  • Home-sharing
  • Urban

Founding year

  • 2021

What we do

We are seeking community around shared housing and meals in a large, urban house in downtown Denver. Open-minded, open-hearted, compassionate, self-aware. The house has 11 bedrooms.
The community is a self governing Co-op. The Co-op makes decisions cooperatively for how the house will function, so some things will change as we decide how to make the house work best for the diverse people living here. The starting intentions include:
• Communication with compassion.
• Shared space and life.
• Shared meals.
• Shared staple foods which are Organic.
• Group decision making.
• Safe, inclusive space: queer and trans friendly, anti-racist, non-violent, and feminist.
• The purchase of the house by the co-op in about five years.
• The expansion of the co-op, possibly to include other housing types (like separate apartments).
• Weekly meetings.
• We expect there will be a buy-in fee when the co-op becomes formal. We expect it might be between $500 and $1000 and will be refundable when moving out of the house.
• Quiet hours are from 10:00pm to 8:00am.
We are looking for community members who:
• Want to live in a community not just have a place to sleep and eat.
• Want to live in a beautiful, clean, and organized house and are willing to help make and keep it that way.
• Are curious, compassionate, flexible, and open to living with others who will undoubtedly have different ideas about many things.
• Are interested in pioneering a new co-op. There will be work involved to get there.
• Are responsible and communicative.
• Embrace enthusiastically that living in community requires introspection and personal growth.
• Are not joining as a way to run away from something.
The house belongs to one of the members. The intention is that the co-op will buy the house in about five years at which point the current owner hopes to buy another building nearby to enlarge the community. We would like to include others in our community in the form of dinners that include our neighbors and friends. We have a community potluck every other month and some neighbors garden with us.

Our Mission

To share community, meals, living space, food, and garden. To attend to personal and interpersonal growth.

  • Purpose
  • Home-sharing
  • Community type
  • Coliving

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2021
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2022
  • Started living together
  • 10 Total members
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
10

How to join

We have an application form. The community reads applications, discusses prospective members, talks to them, meets them, does background checks, and decides as a group. We give 3-6 month leases to begin. At the end of their first year, the community together will decide whether to have the prospective member join permanently.

Basic expectations or agreements for members

We currently have an unoccupied room with a bed. Please call or email if you would like to visit.

Primary decision-making authority

  • All Community Members Together

The whole membership decides collectively.

Decision-making process

  • Consent-Based (Sociocracy)

Decisions proceed unless someone has a reasoned objection.

Governance structure

  • Sociocratic/Circle-Based

Organized in circles or domains with distributed authority.

Conflict resolution approach

We are a Co-op, with house meetings and group decision-making. We are currently discussing the idea of Sociocracy as a governing method.

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: $1030
Labor: Yes (4 hrs/week)
Members with pre-existing debt: allowed
We require members be capable of paying their deposit, rent, utilities, and shared food costs. We verify income as part of the application process.

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

Common House, Garden(s), Workshop, Large Scale Kitchen, Internet

Frequency of communal meals

  • 2-5 times per week

Significant food acquisition practices

  • Locally sourced

Dietary restriction

  • People can cook and eat what they want in their own residence

Substance use culture

  • Substance use appears in public spaces but no pressure
  • Substance use occurs primarily at celebrations or ceremonies

Gender composition

  • Roughly balanced (no group 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

  • Urban

Within city limits with access to urban amenities and infrastructure.

Community type

  • Coliving

    Shared living spaces with private bedrooms/bathrooms and communal
    kitchens, dining, and social areas.

Self-produced energy

  • Up to 33%

Energy sources used

  • Photovoltaic Solar

Self-produced food

  • Up to 33%

Local, organic, or fair trade food

  • Up to 33%

Food systems

  • Community garden
  • Land area size
    0.16 acres

Guest Book

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Location

  • Colorado, United States

Needs and Offers

Connecting communities through an intentional online marketplace

  • Promoted
Offer
Offer
  • Communities with Openings
3 months ago

Permaculture Partners

I’m writing this in May of 2026. This year we bought 3 Mediterranean Dairy Water Buffalo to improve milk production and presently have 17 that we manage on about 50 acres. Over the years we’ve been using HRM (Holistic Resource Management) animal grazing teachings and our pastures continue to look better. Water Buffalo are a major part of our Permaculture Farm near Tampa Florida. Our market garden this season got off to a slow start because of record freezes and then diseases, but finally have a fairly good-looking garden. We did 3 batches of sugar cane last winter and our cane mill worked great. We lost most of the tropical orchard trees because of the freezes, and citrus greening is still a big problem here. We installed an 11 KW stand-alone hybrid solar system with a 20 KW battery, which will be our largest single system. Still have our small edible plant nursery, but may be down-sizing it. Last year we bought a nice used backhoe, another tractor and had our biggest barn tented for termites. At the beginning of this year one of our members started going to NA meetings, which he needed. There he met a girlfriend and a couple of months ago left our group to live with her. He still helps a little here but ended up getting another job. Then 2 of the remaining folks here got married, without any notice, and ended up leaving last week. Presently It’s just Debbie and I, but we do have some local help and a support group of friends. Please check out our web site. Thanks!
Offer
  • Communities with Openings
3 months ago

Community House in SE Portland Seeks Membership!

Ellis Street Community House is seeking kind, present, and engaged new housemates with experience in community living. We are currently 3 adults, one baby, and two cats living in a 6 bedroom, 3 bath house on ÂĽ acre of land near Powell Butte nature park and the Springwater Corridor bike trail. We expect to be joined by a shy and sweet 2 year old in the next few months. For us, living in community is a collaborative process, one that helps improve our quality of life. We’re able to eat great food, keep the place clean, maintain a garden, and hold a space large enough to host guests and events by working together. We have an extensive community library and art/craft material collection, as well as a great tea selection, stocked pantry, and functional kitchens ready for feast-making, canning, and fermentation dreams. We make kombucha, ginger beer, sauerkraut, bone broth, natto, and apple/pear butter on a rotating basis. With two fridges and two deep freezers we can save blueberries and blackberries we harvested from close by and get meat directly from farmers. We hold potlucks and other events like bonfires and game nights about once a month, and make a house dinner together weekly. We maintain a home free from artificial fragrances and voice-activated technology. The larger downstairs room is available for $740 per month. The smaller downstairs room will be available for $600 per month starting on September 1rst. The main kitchen is on the second floor. We also have private outdoor space for someone sleeping in their home on wheels available for $200-500 per month depending on the size of the vehicle. This would include membership in the community and use of the common spaces. Guest space is available for friends and relatives of residents – upstairs there is an office/guest room for longer visits, and the couches/pads in the common areas are available for shorter stays. The home has heating and cooling through an efficient heat pump, and we ju

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