Peterborough Housing Cooperative
Situated in inner-city Ōtautahi (Christchurch), Peterborough Co-op is seven households in a row with joined-up back yards. The households contain three families, two flats, one singles, and one couple, giving fifteen adults and six children. It started in 1982.
Fences were removed. The houses were renovated so their entrance, living room and kitchens open onto their backyard, generally separated from their neighbours by shrubs. The backyards butt onto a large common back yard and common sheds. |
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181 Peterborough Street Damage
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Cooperative Now Being Rebuilt
Peterborough was extensively damaged by the 2011 earthquake and all the houses have been demolished.
No tours are currently available until the new purpose designed pocket neighbourhood is finished. 15 dwellings plus an education centre and guest room. The new cooperative is now under construction and will be finished mid-February 2020. |
Resident Management
Co-operative enterprises are those controlled and managed by their residents, workers, or consumers. The residents run the cooperative, and decisions are made by consensus.
Peterborough has a common lounge, bike shed, laundry, tool shed, vaccuum cleaner, give-away collection, garages, picnic tables, bee hives, basketball hoop, compost bins, trailer, lawn-mower and tree-hut. |
Weekly Pot Luck Dinner
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Annual Christmas Water Fight
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Sense of Community
Peterborough gives a sense of extended family-like ties. Each household is in charge of itself, but is also part of something bigger. Formally this consists of a weekly pot-luck dinner in the common lounge or outside in summer. Residents also have a monthly working-bee for house and yard upkeep.
Informal chats are probably more significant (and just being able to borrow a cup of sugar). It's much like how neighbourhood's used to be. |