Summary:

KCC is exploring a rental co-op model with CMHC funding, while approaching the Technical Adequacy Review with the City. Members visit the new Canoe Museum and participate in a landscape modelling workshop on the Superweekend. KCC member Gayl Hutchison describes her participation in a Peterborough New Horizons band and Alan and Linda Slavin explain their attraction to cohousing.

We welcome feedback and ideas. Send email to outreach@kawarthacommons.ca.   

NEW READERS who are asking “What is cohousing? What are KCC’s goals? What will the building and site be like?” “How can I find out more?” will find lots of information on our website: https://kawarthacommons.ca/

This newsletter and subsequent versions will have three main sections.

1. UPDATE ON THE SITE AND THE BUILDING 

2. GETTING TO KNOW OUR PETERBOROUGH: What Peterborough area has to offer you. (This month it’s the New Horizons bands)

3. OTHER KCC NEWS (including “What has attracted me to cohousing”, part of a series by members)

UPDATE ON THE SITE AND THE BUILDING

The next step towards rezoning the property (before site approval) is the Technical Adequacy Review (TAR). At the TAR the results of all our required studies are reported to the City, along with the Planning Justification Report (including a draft zoning by-law) and the Urban Design Brief, which are being developed by our urban consultant, One Community Planning.

We are intending to apply for recently announced federal CMHC funding for rental co-ops, which is designed to help deal with the Canadian housing crisis. This is a significant shift from KCC’s previous ownership-based model, but would have the major advantage of making the units affordable for many more people who want cohousing. We are attempting to meet the Sept.15 deadline for the first round of applications. One of the requirements is to have a builder on board, so we’re working with our architect, Coolearth, to find an appropriate one. We expect to have to adjust the mix of our unit types to meet the CMHC budget requirements, which is why you have recently received a survey requesting your unit preferences if you are already a KCC member or think you might join KCC at some time in the future. Please respond if you have not already done so!

GETTING TO KNOW OUR PETERBOROUGH: What Peterborough area has to offer you. 

Making music with the New Horizons Band by KCC member Gayl Hutchison

Several years ago friends persuaded me to attend an introductory session about the Peterborough New Horizons Band to which they belonged. Never had I seen myself learning an instrument let alone playing in a band! Although I have been surrounded by music my entire life I have no such innate talent.  

The long and the short of it is that I decided to give it a try and started with the Green Band, the introductory band which teaches would-be players of various instruments to learn note reading, how to play their instruments as well as how the various instruments play together in a band to make music. For me it was a huge learning experience as I had never read a musical note in my life, let alone picked up an instrument. Mine is the clarinet and I still find it very challenging to learn all of the ways in which to play and be in time with the other players but I love the experience of it all.  

For me, in addition to embracing the challenges of learning something so different in my life, I have found new friends and acquaintances, another community, and the fun and joy of making music together with so many instruments as we learn how a conductor brings it all together. 

During these years I became a member of KCC and found similar benefits in the learnings I’ve had through the circles I’ve been a part of, and the interactions of the Full Circle and Discovery Circle meetings. I’ve gained another community with new friendships and relationships with people who share many of my values and interests and from whom I’ve learned much. I look forward to living with such a lovely and diverse group of people. 

The Peterborough New Horizons Band and Kawartha Commons Cohousing are two very different organizations but both enhance my life in a variety of ways for which I am grateful. 

The Peterborough New Horizons Band invites and encourages people of all levels; “beginner, rusty or experienced” to check it out and join if interested. There are bands for everyone within the umbrella. I definitely recommend it to anyone.  

There is an Open House Sept. 9, 2024 for anyone to attend. For more information the web site is nhbpeterborough.com .

OTHER KCC NEWS 

July Superweekend by Aukje Byker

Our July Superweekend included fun, education, connection and of course great food.  We learned how we might landscape our property, making it inviting while using native plants. We are really looking forward to having a berry “snacking path” some day. 

Canoes and kayaks were a large part of the weekend. Aukje, along with over 600 other paddlers, participated in the Lock and Paddle event trying to put as many boats as possible in the Lift Lock. That was fun, but those who came out to watch said that maybe they had more fun as they didn’t have to sit in the hot sun all afternoon but got to walk up and down and see all the colourful boats.

Several members toured the new Canoe Museum. It truly is beautiful and filled with so much history and information. The Museum has Voyageur Canoes that can be booked so we took a tour on one. It was wonderful to experience being on the water in that way and learning more about the history of canoes and their connection to Peterborough.  

Along with these exciting adventures there were opportunities to connect over food– always a great way to connect. There are many good restaurants in Peterborough so we went to several different ones. We enjoy eating together, including sharing our own food, which we did at a potluck dinner in Buckhorn.

Our next Superweekend will be this fall and it’s sure to be full of more wonderful opportunities to share and to connect.

What has attracted me to cohousing by Linda and Alan Slavin

We met in student co-op housing at the University of Toronto—Campus Co-op—living in adjacent male and female houses and sharing meals with about 40 other students. Every member had to do 4 hours of co-op work per week, with Linda sitting on the Board and Alan peeling potatoes in their last year.

But going into community living was not an accident. Linda had been very involved in her teen years as a leader at a camp for under-privileged girls, and Alan was one of eight siblings: Cohousing 101.

We have lived in the same house just outside of Peterborough on 3.5 acres for the last 50 years. We initially bought it jointly with one of Alan’s sisters, husband and two kids, when our own kids were a newborn and a 2-year old. We really appreciated the kids’ ability to play together, and a second set of adults to act as role models. After the sister’s family left to pursue other endeavours, we frequently shared the house with students, family, and other community members who needed temporary or extended accommodation.

Seven years ago, facing ageing and too large a property, we recognized we needed to move. We had attended a talk on cohousing by architect Scott Donovan, so we visited him to see how to proceed, to which Scott replied, “Time to hold a potluck”. Twenty-nine people showed up for that meal at our place just after Christmas 2017, and the rest is KCC history!