Cohousing Tour, Part Three: Peninsula Park Commons.

There's a particular type of 1930s apartment design you see a lot of in Portland.  It's single-story, typically brick, laid out in a row that's usually bent into an L or a C in order to squeeze as many units into the lot as possible.  If you've lived here, you know the ones; some of you have even lived in them.  In 2003, local developer and contractor Eli Spevak bought one of these old complexes at the edge of Peninsula Park, not far from I-5 in North Portland.  "We just sort of stumbled into it," he says of the purchase, and thus Peninsula Park Commons was born.  After renovations, he sold 5 of the 7 units, most to young families like his own, for about $80,000 apiece.  The 6th unit became a common area, and he and his wife moved into the 7th, where his daughter was later born.

The apartment courtyard soon bloomed with an ebullient communal garden, a certified wildlife habitat and the scene of many social gatherings for its residents.  Eli, who has met us on the street to welcome us in, explains, "Every cohousing community has its own themes, and our themes are biking and gardening."  Sure enough, the concrete at the base of a nearby bike rack is studded with ceramic tiles, lovingly hand-painted with bikes and tiny poems about riding them.  The residents of the community are having a yard sale in the courtyard today, and many of them stand smiling beside tables and racks of cast-offs.  We smile back, and I deliberately avoid looking at their wares.  (Now is not a good time to bring home more stuff.)

We pass through the cluttered common apartment ("You can tell it gets a lot of use") into a second courtyard, this one paved with a swirling pattern of reclaimed brick.  When renovations were completed in 2005, Spevak et al. pulled up the parking lot and added two more buildings, containing an additional three units and a common guest room and bike garage.  The units filled instantly, and it's easy to see why: the new construction is utterly charming.  The new courtyard and adjacent concrete steps curve organically, and in keeping with the bike theme, old bicycle parts serve as tasteful decorative features of the new architecture.  A kid whizzes by on a foot-powered scooter.  High above our heads, laundry on a third-floor line flutters like prayer flags.

A genial resident leans down from a second-story balcony and invites us up for a tour of her home.  It's beautiful: not large, but bright and airy, with thoughtfully placed windows and high ceilings (not to mention radiant floor heating, solar panels, tankless water heaters, and just about every other conceivable eco-convenience).  The place captures my imagination in a way that Daybreak utterly failed to do (though at this point, if anyone in these new apartments were to sell, prices would be comparable).  Granted, I'm a sucker for airy, compact architecture; but it's more than that.  Where Daybreak has the feeling of a handful of polite people in a large container, Peninsula Park Commons is unruly with life.

Jess, our host, describes the commons as "cohousing lite, a really kinda laid-back community."  Community-wide meetings happen monthly, work parties happen quarterly, and the only "team" is responsible for the garden.  Community involvement seems to be very much on an as-able basis.  Jess describes her husband as an introvert who was initially wary about living in close contact with so many people, but is now very comfortable here.  But the member of the family who has benefited most from living here is her son, the kid who zipped by us earlier (whom I estimate at maybe nine years old).  "There's so many kids here," Jess says, her smile relaxed, "and there's been absolutely no conflict in regard to parenting."  Her son's adjustment to the community has been a smooth one, though she did have to train him to knock when dropping in on neighbors.  He's not only formed friendships with the other kids of the Commons, but also developed positive relationships with adults beyond his parents, something that just doesn't happen outside some sort of community setting.

But Jess also speaks readily about the negatives of cohousing, and her candidness surprises me.  "Living here has been easy, it's been wonderful, but it's incredibly insular.  When we moved here from just a few blocks away, we tried to keep up relationships with our old neighbors, but it was really hard to do.  This has become our social circle.

"It's very comfortable," she continues, "but everyone here has similar life experiences and perspectives....  If spots open up here and we tell our friends about them before we announce them to the wider community, we are guaranteeing insularity for the future."  It's clear that she feels real concern about this, and it dawns on me that one of the inevitable functions of community, or at least of this kind of community, is to exclude non-members.  When those who are included line up along certain demographics, Jess says, "You lose diversity."  Her son, I note, is one of only two non-white cohousing dwellers I will see out of the many people I encounter today.

Further, I suspect Jess is well aware of the context of her comments: this neighborhood's history of decades of racial and economic segregation, followed by abrupt and relentless gentrification.  Granted, in 2003, that economic wave had already gathered unstoppable momentum; it could not have been altered either way by one man's decision to buy one tiny apartment complex.  But the middle-class residents of Peninsula Park Commons have all directly benefited from the impact of gentrification, and now live very comfortably in its wake.  I don't blame them, but I do wonder who was living on this lot when Eli bought it, and where they went, and what their lives are like today.  Would they be welcome here now?  This community is a truly wonderful thing... but as with many of the shiny new wonders of North Portland, I question whether it had to be built on the ashes of the communities that once, against all odds, thrived here.  I honestly don't have any answers, but I certainly don't think ill of anyone who has chosen to live here.  I must confess my own eyes lit up green at the mention of that initial cost of $80,000 per unit.  Condos that affordable are hard to find in other areas of inner Portland.

Eli began his career with several years' worth of work for Habitat for Humanity, which means he is doubtless well aware of the complicated context of his community, and has put considerable effort into providing housing for the poor.  Jess tells us that he and his family will eventually be moving to his newest construction project about 3.5 miles east of here, a 16-condo community called Cully Grove.  "I try not to think about that," she says, her smile rueful.

It seems to me that the unspoken third theme here is that of family.  Peninsula Park Commons is a place where families, obviously, thrive; but it also has the feeling of a large extended family, and the Spevaks' impending departure is, in a way, a loss of family members.  They'll always have a connection with Peninsula Park, but it won't be the same; their loyalties will lie with a new family.  And then someone else will move into their condo and become part of this family.  I'm a teeny bit envious of those people.

We thank Jess and return to the sunlit courtyard.  Our timing is good; the bus is rumbling nearby, ready to take us to Cascadia Commons, where lunch awaits.