MotherTown - A home is the most significant purchase most of us will make and house-hunters spend a lot of time examining square footage, kitchen cabinets and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. It seems a shame you can’t also shop for a neighborhood — a place where you know the people who live around you share the same values and ideals and where you can build friendships and a sense of community.

“If you’re homeowners, you can look for that kind of neighborhood,” said Jen Wiley-Cardone. “You can look for joint backyards, for example – but co-housing takes the neighborhoods we grew up in and makes [finding them] easier.”

Welcome to Mosaic Commons, a 36-home co-housing community that will soon be built on Sawyer Hill Road in Berlin. Members will have their own private homes, but the neighborhood is being designed by its future residents and all decisions are reached by consensus.

Another co-housing neighborhood, Camelot Cohousing, will be erected simultaneously down the street. Though the neighborhoods will have autonomy, decisions affecting both are discussed by the Sawyer Hill Board, which has three representatives from each community. Wiley-Cardone sits on that board.

“We are creating the space to develop a community,” she said. “That’s all this is.”

It was this idea that appealed to Perley Mears and his wife Sandy Altucher.

“I wanted to be part of a neighborhood where you know people and people are close by,” Altucher said. “When we were growing up, we used to be running through the yards to play with our friends. Now we have play dates. I’m not sure how things changed.”

The Mosaic Commons group just celebrated its seventh anniversary. It’s been a long process to find a piece of land and secure the proper permitting, but now it is hoped site work will begin this summer, building will commence this fall and new homes will be ready for move in next fall, 2008.

“Now that we have the permitting, we’re able to attract more diversity in the family structure,” Wiley-Cardone said. “We have a mix of one, two, three and four bedrooms, to intentionally attract different households — singles, families, empty nesters. Our oldest resident is in her seventies. They can have interaction with children, which is vibrant and keeps them on their toes, but they can also retreat to their private home.”

John Barrett, who joked he let himself “be dragged over the threshold with my wife,” Judy Dempewolff, has been involved from almost the beginning.

“The thing that appealed to us is the fact that in our later years — I’ll be 64 this year — we’re pretty active,” he said. “We’re not quite ready to lay down and relax. We wanted to be in a community that had dynamic families, not just over-50 households or retirees.”

Wiley-Cardone said the neighborhood will make it more natural to form friendships, since everyone is coming from a common place.

“It’s intentionally designed to be small enough for you to know your neighbors,” she said. “It’s not about being best friends with everyone, it’s about being comfortable.”

 A cause to commit to

Mosaic Commons has three types of memberships: prospective, associate and equity memberships. Prospective members attend group meetings and while they may participate, they cannot vote. Associates contribute an initial $50, then monthly dues based on the size of their household.

Equity members have put 5 percent of their future home’s cost into the project. It was a risky move, Wiley-Cordone said, especially when the group was still looking for land on which to build.

“The idea is it shows you have a serious commitment,” Wiley-Cordone said. “Even in the depths of desperation, everyone sunk in as much money as they could.”

For Beth Storrs, the dedication is so serious she sold her home in Connecticut in 2004 to finance her equity membership. She currently shares a rental with a family who will also be moving to Mosaic Commons.

“It’s a huge commitment, but it looks like our belief has actually paid off,” she said.

The group meets every other Sunday and there are introductory meetings the third Sunday of every month which gives an overview of the group and an update on the progress. Potential members are invited to attend this meeting, then a general meeting to see if co-housing suits them. From there, a finance teams works with them to make sure a new member can qualify for the mortgage and an existing member is assigned as a mentor to walk them through the process. The next introductory meeting is at 1 p.m., April 15 at the Marlborough Boys and Girls Club, 169 Pleasant St., Marlborough.

All group decisions are made at general meetings, though there are some social and fun items as well. Resolutions are by consensus.

“I think the real learning for me in the process is how decision are being made,” Barrett said. “It’s usually authority by the majority and here it’s very different. It took a while to get used to.”

Equity members have the right to block a vote, which sends the conversation back to the table.

“The key is when you do that, you have to do it for the benefit of the community,” Barrett said. “We haven’t had many, but what it’s done is forced the discussion from minority point of view and forced [the group] to listen. There’s often a better solution. You make your commitment at the point of the decision. I’ve been quite impressed with how it’s worked.”

“The consensus process takes a long time, but in the end, when you implement it, you have buy-in,” Wiley-Cordone said.

The culture of the future neighborhood is clear in the meetings — each member is treated with respect, even the smallest ones.

“That took a while to get used to,” Altucher said. “The kids were wandering in the meetings but that’s OK. It feels like a work meeting — because you’re doing work — but you could still have the babies in your lap.”

Although the group is creating a cohesive community, Wiley-Cardone stressed that after she and her husband buy their home, it is theirs in every sense of the word.

“After we move in, I can sell my house to anyone I want,” she said. “I don’t need the approval of the neighborhood. But there is usually a waiting list, so though there are no official rules, you’d go to the list first. It’s not a deterrent; it’s actually a benefit. I’d love to have someone in line to buy my house.”

Wiley-Cordone readily agrees that co-housing may not be for everyone and the concept is relatively new.

“It’s not a mainstream housing option — there are 12 communities in Massachusetts and the oldest is 12 or 13 years old,” she said. “People had expectations this would be a change and if I didn’t think it was a change for the better, I wouldn’t do it.”

Barrett, who now lives in Natick, also said the group was committed to being good neighbors not only to one another but also to their new town as a whole.

“We’re going to make a significant impact on the town of Berlin,” Barrett said. “Including Camelot, there are over 100 people, so we have to be very careful and reach out to people to minimize the traffic, which we are more than willing to do.”

More information about Mosaic Commons can be found at www.mosaic-commons.org. Christine Quirk can be reached at cquirk@cnc.com.