River Song Cohousing is an intergenerational community of independent households committed to finding purpose and a sense of belonging through working, learning and playing together in a neighborhood designed to make a small and beautiful footprint on the land.

Our Website

Visit our  website (https://riversongcohousing.org/ ) for up-to-date information about our community including: calendar of events, our values statement, cohousing information, site design, information about our members, photos, articles, links, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and more.

Short History

Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their community. Oakleigh Meadow Cohousing grew out of the efforts of Joan Connelly and David Adee, who bought a beautifully located property and had the vision to transform this lovely meadow into a cohousing community. The idea grew, starting with a “Getting It Built” workshop in December 2011, and forming an Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) on April 1, 2012, “Oakleigh Meadow, LLC”.  While we changed our community name to River Song Cohousing in January, 2020, our legal business name remains Oakleigh Meadow, LLC. All full members are member-managers of the LLC.

The Cohousing Concept

Dramatic demographic and economic changes have taken place in our society, leaving a mismatch between today’s households and conventional housing. Single-family houses were designed for a 1950s-model family with “a bread-winning father and a full-time housewife.” Contemporary households—characterized by smaller families, women working outside the home, and growing numbers of single parents, elders, and singles living alone—face a child care crisis, social isolation, and a chronic time crunch, in part because they are living in housing which no longer suits them. At the same time, an increasingly mobile population has distanced many Americans from their extended families who traditionally provided social and economic support. Things that people once took for granted—family, community, and a sense of belonging—must now be actively sought out. Few options address these needs.

Consensus Decision-Making

RSC uses a consensus decision-making method. This is a group decision-making process that seeks the consent of all Full Member households. We have adopted “consensus minus one”. In the event of one household blocking, we attempt to resolve the block by exploring the topic in more depth with the full participation of the various viewpoints of the topic. Our technique for achieving consensus is the following:

∙Introduce the issue Clarify any questions Discuss the issue Establish the general direction. Synthesize or modify the proposal as needed. Call for consensus. Record the decision, task, timeline, implementation.

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