Modern cohousing building at sunset with trees and street view.

Washington Commons Cohousing

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Forming
  • Home-sharing
  • Urban

Founding year

  • 2016

What we do

Welcoming new members! Join us in creating an urban cohousing community in the city of West Sacramento — voted the “Most Livable City in America, under 100,000 population” by the US Council of Mayors.
We have our permit and are under construction! We are building an energy efficient, 4-story, 35-condo cohousing project with an expected December 2023 move-in. A few one, two, and two-plus bedroom, fully equipped condos are still available to reserve. Floor plans available following site and Zoom information tours. Our design includes on-site parking, a native-plant garden, a bike/dog-washing area, and a spacious second level terrace. Residents share 5,800 sq ft of interior community space, including a large dining room with kitchen, guest rooms, craft and exercise rooms, coffee/wine nooks, and more.
Our property is part of a bikeable, walkable historic residential neighborhood two blocks from the Sacramento River (where one can birdwatch, boat, or explore the Riverwalk). We’re just minutes from Old Sacramento, the Golden 1 Center NBA arena, River Cats AAA baseball, museums, restaurants, pubs, shopping, Sacramento Amtrak (11 trains daily to the Bay Area), and 20 minutes from the Sacramento International Airport.
JOIN our diverse community of single/married and working/retired households. Help create your future neighborhood. Explorer status available for $100. Visit our website at washington-commons.org and follow us on Facebook. Want to talk to a real person? Call our outreach coordinator, Shelly Parks, at 425-308-0639.

Our Mission

For people who value relationships, diversity, self-governance, and quality of life.

  • Purpose
  • Home-sharing
  • Community type
  • Cohousing

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2016
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2024
  • Started living together
  • 41 Total members
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
41

How to join

We are actively recruiting new members. Explorer status is required before becoming a member. We are holding site visits and other events, including online info events. Please visit our website for the latest events and sign up for our email newsletter and event notification. We also encourage you to follow our Facebook page.

Basic expectations or agreements for members

Visit our website: htpp//www.Washington-Commons.org for contact information.

Primary decision-making authority

  • Small Leadership Group

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

Decision-making process

  • Modified Consensus

Generally seek agreement, but have backup methods when consensus isn’t reached.

Governance structure

  • Collaborative/Horizontal

Power and responsibility are shared relatively equally among members.

Conflict resolution approach

We are committed to being a collaborative, consensus building community.

Economic model

  • Independent Finances

Members maintain separate personal finances with minimal sharing.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • There is a one-time fee, investment, or share purchase to join the community separate from accessing housing
  • Members need to pay fees, dues, or similar to live there on a per month or per year basis
  • 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

Join fee: Yes
Regular fees: Yes
We encourage interested persons to become Explorers– $100 for a 3-month period. The membership fee is $2,000 –minus the $100 Explorer fee.

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

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

Frequency of communal meals

  • 2-5 times per week

Substance use culture

  • Substance use appears in public spaces but no pressure

Age demographics

  • Mixed adults (few or no children)

Property status

  • Privately owned

Property owner

  • By a Land Trust, Home Owners Association, or corporation

Setting

  • Urban

Within city limits with access to urban amenities and infrastructure.

Community type

  • Cohousing

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

Self-produced energy

  • Up to 33%

Self-produced food

  • Up to 33%

Local, organic, or fair trade food

  • Up to 33%

Food systems

  • Community garden
  • Land area size
    0.56 acres

Guest Book

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

Location

  • California, United States

Washington Commons Cohousing

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

Offer
Need
Need
  • Forming Communities
2 weeks ago

A call for pioneers, trade-builders, and the four Elemental Elders to construct our first cooperative village prototype.

Intake Open: Flagship WE Network Village in Clubb, MO Call for pioneers, trade-builders, and 4 Elemental Elders to construct our first cooperative village prototype. WE Network is opening ground zero in Clubb, Missouri—our living model to build trade shops and train leadership teams for nationwide village rollout. We are building a self-sustaining, salvaged homestead ecosystem operating as a parallel society alongside existing systems. Bring your own living setup (tents, micro-campers, trucks, schoolies, tiny homes) to secure your lot within the co-op village. The 3×3 Exchange: Mental, Physical, & Spiritual Maintain your lot via our 3×3 exchange (3 hours/day, 3 days/week = 9 hours total): Mental: Classroom teaching, strategy, skill-sharing, and village instruction. Physical: Hands-on labor building active land and shop projects. Spiritual: Participation in our weekly Friday Fellowship Fire Circle. Trade Shops & Lot Placement Every member contributes directly to our local micro-economy: Trade Holders: Set up your specific service shop for the co-op. Transitioning Members: Assigned a trade lot to focus on constructing the physical shop structure. Weekend Operations: Retail open Saturdays and Sundays. Mid-week is reserved for building and life. Priority Intake: The Four Elemental Elders We are recruiting four foundational Elders: Earth Elder: Land, soil, livestock, permaculture, and natural materials. Air Elder: Building structures and Eco Junk waste-to-material upcycling. Fire Elder: Spiritual health, Natural Law, body healing, and Fire Circles. Water Elder: Resource flow, food storage, bookkeeping, and services. How to Apply 👉 Visit fffc.wtf to submit your intake request today.
Offer
  • Real Estate For Sale
5 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  
Need
  • Forming Communities
3 weeks ago

Looking for: people building relational capacity, with a view to community

What’s here now: An intention, a framework developed over five years, and a programme running in central Victoria to find people to build with. No land, no group, no timeline. The question this is organised around: What makes a community of people living together sustainable over decades – where people enjoy being there, conflict is low, and the conflict that does arise gets handled in ways people value. The distinctive premise is capacity before formation. Most communities form first and build relational skill afterwards, usually under pressure. This one proposes doing it the other way round: people build the capacities first, and the group forms from people who have them. That includes a working idea about collective capacity – that a group has a ratio, and below some threshold it can’t metabolise its own conflict and starts consuming itself. Roughly: in a group of twenty, perhaps three or four with high capacity, most in the middle, and very few without. Untested, and something this project exists to find out. Governance: Sociocracy, with the intention of testing it meaningfully at scale rather than adopting it nominally. What’s actually happening: A three-week residency at a property near Castlemaine, and a practice group running before it. The medium-term aim is twenty to forty people at a rented facility. The long-term aim is a support hub sharing the framework more widely. What I’m looking for: People who want to build this capacity seriously, and who might eventually want to build something together. Not necessarily people who want to live here – the current property probably isn’t the long-term site. Happy to hear from anyone this resonates with, including people already in community who’d rather share what they’ve learned than join anything.
  • Events
3 weeks ago

Restoring Choice - free online practice group, from Australia

Restoring Choice – free sessions and a practice group Many of us are less practised at three things than we realise: making clear requests, saying no when it isn’t a full yes, and hearing no without something getting damaged. These aren’t personality traits. They’re capacities that were trained out of many of us by ordinary structures – families where some needs were allowed and others weren’t, workplaces that reward overstretch. They can be trained back. Why this might interest people here Most communities teach communication after people arrive, once conflict has already surfaced. This works the other way round – building capacity first, and finding out what a group can do when most people already have it. What’s running Free 60-minute introduction, online. Same session each time; come to whichever suits. Register for intro session below: https://events.humanitix.com/reclaim-your-power-with-restoring-choice Four-week practice group, Tuesdays from 15 September, 6:30-8:00pm. One session a week, and at least one short written entry a day about a real situation in your own life. The writing is the actual work; the sessions support it. Sign up by Sunday 13 September. Register for practice group below: https://events.humanitix.com/restoring-choice-practice-group Everything is free. Times are Australian Eastern 6:30pm here is the early hours in most of the Americas. Worth checking before you register. Who it’s for No prior experience needed. It isn’t therapy, and I’m not a therapist. Many people find that looking honestly at how well they ask, decline, or hear a no is less flattering than expected. That’s common, and it isn’t a verdict on anyone. Run by Glenn Russo – 13 years practising this material, seven years co-facilitating an NVC practice group in Castlemaine. If you’re already living in community and would rather share what you’ve learned than join anything, I’d like to hear from you too.

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An institution, business, network, or project that isn’t a residence (e.g. a learning center, farm, or network with no one living there full-time).

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