History
In 2019, several Raleigh-area people began meeting together to explore the idea of cohousing. All shared a commitment to inclusiveness and social justice and ties to various area organizations and projects. We met regularly to develop common principals to guide our group and explore options for possible locations and design.
Initially, the focus was to find land relatively close to Raleigh because of the members’ jobs and involvement in local activities. We considered a traditional cohousing model, small clustered individual homes with similar design, group space and a common house, community meals and activities, etc. An LLC organization was formed in July 2020 and nine households (17 individuals) became initial members with hopes of attracting additional diverse membership.
As it became apparent affordable land for this kind of project could not be found in Raleigh, the group disbanded the LLC and began exploring other options including moving together into a section of a larger development and looking further into the county, specifically in the area around Wendell.
When a tract of largely undeveloped land in Wendell (19 acres with two existing homes) came on the market, a member of the group purchased it and our focus shifted to this new opportunity. This member moved onto the site and is acting as “developer” and another member purchased the second structure and has renovated it and moved into it in November 2021. The rest of the group continues to be involved in decision making and the exploratory work. An engineering firm has been engaged and site plans to subdivide the land into ~13 lots have been filed with the town. While timing is not firm, the expectation is the development plan will be approved and lots available for purchase in the summer or fall of 2022 and anticipated occupying homes in mid-2023.
While we originally called ourselves Wake Cohousing while getting established, given the parcel of land is located on Acorn Creek Lane (and us nearly its sole occupants), the group decided Acorn Creek Community would be a fitting name for our cohousing group.
I’m Interested in Learning More
I’m interested in learning more; what’s my next step? – while our legal LLC was disbanded, the core group of nine households continues to meet regularly both for social activities and business meetings focused 100% on the Acorn Creek parcel. After our re-zoning request is approved, those households not already living at Acorn Creek will be building and moving to their property in stages.
Other interested individuals will initially be invited to social activities before participating in business meetings as an observer. We expect to use the Fall of 2021 through Summer of 2022 to meet those explorers. It’s really important to us to find time for explorers to get to know us, and us them. To this end, we’ll prioritize time for social times together that are safe, given the current pandemic.
We are pretty sure we’ll have 13 lots. So, given the core group of nine, we are likely open to ~4 new member households in the community. With the current level of interest, it is likely that in 2022 we’ll find good mutual matches to our values. After that we will then be encouraging people to consider being placed on a waiting list. Your next step, if interested, would be to fill out the website form and start this important time of mutual learning and exploration.
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