Inside Edmonton's only cohousing project: how 26 families built a rare intentional community
Urban Green in Old Strathcona is the city's first and only equity-based cohousing community, where residents own homes but intentionally share daily life, from meals to childcare to ageing in place.
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A two-bedroom condo listed for $450,000 at #403, 10115 88th Ave. NW in Old Strathcona sounds ordinary on the market sheet. But it sits inside Urban Green, Edmonton's only equity-based cohousing community — a place where residents own their own homes but intentionally share parts of daily life, from meals and maintenance to holiday celebrations and childcare.
Urban Green was born out of frustration. A group didn't want to build just another car-centric neighbourhood where everyone kept to themselves. Instead, they wanted to create an intentional community where people could raise families, age in place, and support one another. The idea first took shape in 2011, but residents didn't move in until 2023 — a 12-year gap that tells you something about how hard it is to make cohousing work.
According to founding member and resident Della Dennis, most cohousing projects never even make it that far. The project was funded entirely by future residents, which meant the group had to pre-sell 80 per cent of the homes before construction could even begin. By the time shovels hit the ground in 2020, the pandemic arrived with soaring material costs, supply chain issues and delays. Then came a contractor bankruptcy. The project even had to pivot from a wood-frame building to steel and concrete before it finally crossed the finish line. But for the people who stuck around, the result has been a close-knit community built on years of trust.
When visitors arrived, it was easy to see what residents meant. The building is home to people of all generations, and everyone seemed to know each other's names and birthdays. As one resident said, they're "living independently, together."
Legally, Urban Green is a strata, Dennis explained, because Alberta doesn't have a legal definition for cohousing. But day-to-day life looks a little different than a typical condo building. Residents meet every month, make decisions by consensus and pitch in through committees that look after different parts of the community. Ownership comes with access to about 4,000 square feet of shared space, including a community kitchen, dining room, library, media room, guest suite, rooftop terrace, and gardens.
It's not just the shared space. There are regular community meals, Christmas parties, babysitting, and neighbours looking out for each other. People wandered through common spaces like extensions of their own homes.
The building itself was designed with sustainability in mind. It's fossil fuel-free and includes triple-pane windows, solar panels, high-efficiency insulation, and an air-source heat pump.
According to the Canadian Cohousing Network, cohousing communities are intentionally designed to balance private homes with shared spaces and collaborative decision-making, allowing residents to maintain independence while fostering community. Urban Green is one of the rare examples in Canada where that vision actually took root and thrived.
