While Europeans are no strangers to communal, urban living, evidenced by things like Baugruppen, the phenomenon is still pretty rare in North America. Cohousing, the most established form or communal living this side of the pond, tends to be located in the burbs. In these communities, several single family houses band together to create a cohesive community with regular shared activities and spaces. There are some urban exceptions such as Durham Central Park Coho. But developing a building like Durham Coho is a time and resource intensive affair. Now a group out of Vancouver calling themselves ?Our Urban Village? has come up with a clever middle ground approach to creating communal living in the city. Rather than developing their own building, they?re seeking to graft their community onto an existing development. The group calls their concept ?”co-housing lite”. Rather than originating the development, the group would commit to buying several units at market value (~C$700/sq ft at the moment) of an in-progress condo building. This influx of cash would give the developer investment capital as well as cost savings down the road as pre-sale and marketing expenses would be minimized. In return, the developer would build common spaces such as shared dining and guest rooms for the community. While these added features might seem like a big hit for the developer, co-founding member James Chamberlain told the Globe and Mail that developers see the expense as fairl...