FAQs
Does Puyallup Cohousing have developable land?
Yes. Mike, the founding member of the group, owns a ~17 acre farm consisting of 3 tax parcels. The 4 acre and the 6.75 acre parcel are zoned for medium residential development. Both of these parcels are currently in unincorporated Pierce County but are within the City of Puyallup’s Urban Growth Boundary. Mike will serve in the role of “patient, cohousing-friendly landlord” until the group is ready to buy the land.
How do you know it’s developable?
We’ve been working with a local Civil Engineer on a feasibility study for development. Several engineering studies were completed in 2021-23 including: Wetlands, Septic, traffic, and GeoTech. The local water company has provided a ‘Certificate of Water Availability’.
We had our first meeting with representatives from Pierce County Development Engineering, Zoning, Fire, and Health on March 23rd, 2022 to get their feedback on our assumptions to make sure that there are no barriers to a clustered cohousing development. They gave us very positive feedback and suggested the next round of studies for us to pursue.
Those suggestions led to our second meeting with Pierce County. We met with representatives from Development Engineering and Traffic on May 15th, 2023 to discuss road access. The County was supportive of the recomendations for road improvements made in our Traffic study.
We submitted our preliminary land use plan to Pierce County on May 16th, 2025. It’s over 200 pages long! We’re anxious to see how long the county takes to issue permits.
What size community do we envision?
The answer to this question is a key differentiator between Puyallup Cohousing and a ‘standard’ cohousing development.
In ‘standard’ cohousing, the ideal community size is typically denominated in the number of units (homes), typically 25-35. These 25-35 units are almost always developed as small condos designed for single-family ownership.
We are choosing to measure the ideal community size in ‘people’, and are striving for an ideal size of 40-50 residents. This has several interesting ramifications that are explored in detail on ‘The Land’ tab of this website, where you can see our bias to fewer larger shared residences.
For those interested in hard zoning limits, the county confirmed that a maximum density of 4 units per acre will be permitted on septic. (sewer is not available) So this means 43 units on the combined 10.75 acres would be allowed with current zoning. We are choosing to develop a total of only 20 units: 8 on the 4 acre parcel and a maximum of 12 more on the 6.75 acre parcel. Each unit will have 6 bedrooms which will encourage sharing of living space within the residences, not unlike the ‘single room occupancy model’ common in North America in the early part of the 20th century. Again, please refer to ‘The Land’ for an extended discussion.
What is on the land right now?
Dirt. The land has been a farm since at least WWII, historically growing raspberries. A sharecropper has been farming the land for 30+ years. Labor shortages have led to switching away from raspberries to a mix of annual crops like corn, beans or pumpkins in the last few years. See the movie on the homepage and the pictures on ‘the land’ tab to take a look.
Are there any issues with proximity to the Puyallup River?
The 10.75 acres on the two developable parcels are not within any regulated floodplain or floodway areas and contain no wetlands. The extreme northeast corner of the 4 acre parcel is within 200 feet of a wetlands boundary, which may require an extra shoreline study.
The remaining ~6 acre 3rd parcel borders the Puyallup River for about 800 feet but is not developable due to being zoned for agriculture only. There is an existing single family house on this parcel along with a bit less than 2 acres of plowed fields, with the remainder of the acreage dominated by wetlands along the Puyallup River and their associated wetland buffer zones.
We have been in contact with the Pierce County Conservation District (PCCD) to evaluate two schemes on this parcel. One scheme that we started in the spring of 2023 is to rebuild the tired soil with cover crops for a few years. This farmed area could make a really nice community garden, CSA, food forest, or park with a little TLC. See the ‘Farming’ tab of the website for lots more detail on this parcel.
We have also been in contact with a riparian restoration specialist from PCCD with a speculative plan to explore the creation of salmon spawning habitat in the wetlands bordering this parcel. In the fall of 2024, he was awarded a $40,000 grant to study this alternative and has toured the wetlands with a representative from the South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group (SPSSEG). He will be putting out a request for quotes in the spring (2025) and plans to issue a feasibility report next summer.
Are there any other known issues with the land?
The land has been actively farmed for many years. There are no known threatened or endangered plant or animal species, historical buildings, contamination, tribal issues or the like. Engineering studies suggest that the soils are excellent, both structurally and for septic. There is a right-of-way easement for a major gas pipeline on the NW corner of the 6.75 acre parcel – crops are OK but no buildings are allowed on their right-of-way.
How about the neighborhood?
East of the property is zoned for low density residential.
South of the property shares our zoning of medium density residential.
North of the 4 ac parcel is a steep drop to wetlands along the Puyallup River. North of the 6.75 ac parcel is part of the warehouse project to the West.
The ~162 acres to the West is zoned for ’employment center’ and current plans are for 7 large warehouses. This warehouse development is in the planning phase and has been the subject of much discussion over the last 11 years. The City of Puyallup is serving as the lead agency in creating an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the warehouse project. The comment period for the draft EIS ended on Mar 15, 2024. The final EIS is anticipated to be published in 2025. Much more information is available on the City of Puyallup’s website at: https://knutsonfarmseis.org
Any regional issues?
The Pacific Northwest has produced some truly spectacular earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in the last several centuries. If you are concerned about either of these events happening in your lifetime, the Pacific Northwest is probably not the place you want to set down roots. Should Mt Rainier have an eruption of similar magnitude to that of Mt St. Helens, it is possible that a lahar would flow through the Puyallup Valley where the farm is located.
Do we have a target budget? Timeline?
Not yet, but soon. We expect to establish a firm budget and timeline in the summer of 2025.
On May 16th, 2025 we submitted over 200 pages of a preliminary land use application to Pierce County that includes a site plan, common house design, unit layouts and much more. The budget in real estate development is usually expressed in a ‘pro forma’ which is a best guess as to all the financial information for the project. There is a bit of an iterative process as the county review of our plan prior to issuing permits will likely request changes that will impact costs. Once the changes settle down, we’ll have to go out for bids, which will then update the pro forma. We expect this process to continue through the summer.
As is typical with cohousing, it is likely that price-per-square-foot will exceed local new construction costs for single family homes since additional value will be derived from shared facilities like the common house, workshops, green spaces, farmland and other amenities. Other cohousing projects in WA are currently forecasting costs of $500-$600 per square foot.
Our timeline will be influenced by the legal structure that we choose. Our preferred legal structure is a limited equity cooperative, but many details of this legal structure are currently undefined. Co-op’s are relatively rare in WA, so legal and financial resources may be problematic. It is not unusual for cohousing projects to take 1-2 years from plan submission to occupancy, and some take much longer.
Our current best guess is for permits, costs, and legal structure to be defined in late 2025 – early 2026 with occupancy in late 2026-early 2027.
What is our governance strategy?
We have decided to adopt sociocracy as our decision making and governance strategy. Sociocracy ensures that all voices are heard in a non-hierarchical, consent-based decision making process. Decisions are delegated to small teams who create well thought out proposals that are sent to the larger group for approval or modification. We will be asking all members to educate themselves either by taking classes or at the website: https://www.sociocracyforall.org/
What is our legal structure?
Great question – We’re working hard to answer it!
We have created a legal entity called “PC Hops Development, LLC”. In a standard cohousing condominium development, members would contribute money to this LLC. The LLC would then buy the land, finance the construction loan, and contract with all of the various professionals to manage and build the project. Upon completion, the development LLC would then sell the units to the new owners and their HOA before terminating. So far, we have elected not to fund or use this LLC for anything other than incidental costs.
We are actively exploring other alternative legal structures. We are especially interested in the idea of a limited equity co-operative. We think a co-op might be more suitable to our objectives of accessibility, flexibility, and affordability. One way this could work would be for the co-op to own everything (land and buildings) and residents would purchase shares in the co-op. Your ownership would be the share and you would then effectively be renting your dwelling from the co-op. Your share would be equity limited to preserve some semblance of affordability for the next owner of your share when you sold it and moved on.
How do we intend to resolve disagreements?
We have standardized on a book called “Nonviolent Communication, A Language of Life” by Marshall Rosenberg. We are experimenting on how to use the ideas and techniques in our group interactions.
What is the vision for this community?
We’re creating a neighborhood that blends traditional homes with shared facilities, offering social, practical, economic, and environmental benefits. We anticipate that all of our homes will be designed for convenient sharing, either by rental or co-ownership. In addition to our emphasis on community, residents will enjoy direct access to the Puyallup River, the Foothills Bike Trail, and shared green spaces.
We aim for positive, respectful relationships with our neighbors, the neighborhood, and the City of Puyallup. After initial uncertainty, most neighborhoods have come to value the presence of a cohousing community. We plan to use non-violent communication techniques and a governance method called Sociocracy to make decisions and resolve conflicts.