How can an active senior community be both co-housing and a co-op?
It is simple when you look at the many similarities rather than the few differences. The few differences are mainly related to finance. Most co-housing developments use the condo model, where there are 41 individual owners with individual title (each paying their own bank mortgage) to their unit, but are also part of a HOA that requires joint liability. A co-op is a group of 41 individual shares of a single mortgage together and have an HOA much like a condo HOA. Co-housing owners must respect the individual ownership of each unit like a traditional condo, while trying to live together under some blanket philosophy to try to live together. Co-ops have certain rights that condos do not have under the law. When a group of people choose to live in community these differences do not mean much, but when a dispute arises, the law comes first. The difference really should boil down to how you pay your mortgage. If you live in a condo you pay the bank, if you live in a co-op you pay your neighbors, who then pay the bank.