Date Founded
The Kobbe Communities first unit was founded in 2007. Subsequent expansions in 2013, 2018, and 2021.
Location
The Presidio of San Francisco
Rented or owned
Rented, year-year leases
Amount of Space
4 homes, 25 rooms, 2.5/3 bathrooms per home, 5 garages (two of which are artist studios), around 3,000 - 5,000 square feet per home. Tons of commons, living rooms, dining rooms, full-sized basements. And the best part is having a national park as our backyard.
A unit started out as a "no rules, rules" house. That tradition carried on as we expanded from A→B→C. Today, it is largely an informal mix. A & C are still the closest to operating under the "no rules, rules" while other houses have largely loose and informal rules agreed upon in group chats and emails. One of the best things I can say about the benefit of no rules is its ability to force dialogue and prevent one person's preferences (or rules) from dictating what is right and wrong. It also forces a sort of collective consciousness; there is an acceptable baseline to how clean the kitchen should be, if you prefer it to be cleaner, just know that is your preference and not the universal expectation.
How the units manage is also variable. 2/4 homes have a more traditional structure where one person assumes most of the financial and day-to-day operations of the homes. Think primary tenant but not really because our leases have no concept of this. The other two function with much more diffuse systems. While there are clear leaders, there is no concept of desire for any of us to view the home or themselves in this way.
One thing, however, that has significantly improved over time is documentation. This first started with the B unit. The idea was all information should be available. From the money that we spent as a group, to the number you should call if the toilet breaks. At a baseline, this information is accessible and shared with all of the units. These Notion pages also serve as the collective scratchpad for new ideas; want to plan a party? Easy, let's start looking at all the parties of the past, what did we do, how much did we spend, what was the checklist after cleaning up from the rager? As time goes on and people switch out, this historical knowledge has become quite valuable.
We do have one hard rule, and that is adding people to the lease. Everyone who participates in the roommate finding process must agree on a housemate before signing them onto the lease. If anyone says no, it is presumed that roommate will not join our home. The veto must be backed up with an explanation of their reasons and be open to a conversation about why. The only housemates who do not get to decide on new housemate selection are those who choose not to participate and forgo being involved in decision-making.
Keeping spaces tidy is always a challenge because, invariably, over time, space collects too many things. But, fear not, we have a solution for this problem. As a baseline, we operate under the idea that there is no personal storage, cardboard boxes, etc., in any common areas. Of course, many of us have furniture, art, etc. But those are subjects to change and are not guaranteed to permanently be stored in any of the spaces. Deciding what does or doesn't belong is an informal process with people discussing, thinking about how best to create space. Limiting one's ability to use the house as a personal storage unit has been a very effective way of keeping the spaces free of clutter. While it might sound at times restrictive, we believe it facilitates spaces changing; nothing is set in stone, and people can change spaces however they see fit. There's always an informal approach, consensus gathering, and shopping the idea around. But this mostly takes place with those who are actively engaging in updating the spaces that make those decisions. We're always open to things being undone; however, the opinions of those who do things are weighted a little heavier, after all, they have given this more thought than "I don't like it". One fun thing to note is once upon a time in B unit, we created the CCC, better known as the Center for Consumer Control. It was a small corner in our basement where anything goes. All of your consumer refuse, boxes, whatever could be thrown in this space. As you can imagine, it was a terrible idea; as soon as the space was emptied, things would magically reappear. It was a fun experiment that ended quickly.
Guests, in the vein of allowing as much freedom as possible, we typically have a grace period of two weeks for guests, especially for those returning housemates. There was, for quite some time, an active hosting of couch surfers. Here too, we needed no permission, but the host was absolutely responsible for their guest. It became so normalized that we were unfazed by strangers in the house, after all, that was the status quo. This too has largely faded over time, with most announcing their guests or asking others to announce their guests. For those of us who lived in the days of pure anarchy, this is unfortunate. But, as always, things change.
One last thing, and we believe this is among the best benefits of our community, is its size. No single home will ever have all the social needs met by each other. Having four different houses and 25 people allows us to find the people and friends with whom we resonate most. One group might watch "Survivor" together, while another goes surfing. This scale also makes communal events very fun. We can throw a huge barbecue or throw an impromptu party with all of community and feel as if it's an actual party. We organize with WhatsApp; there is one big group, and there are a bunch of affinity groups. Opt in and out of any of them. It has also become an unexpected way to keep up with all of those who have left. There might be 25 people in the community, but there are 40 in the group chat.