INTENTIONALLIVING
Carrboro’s Pacifica neighborhood is based on the principles of shared space, sustainable living and valued community By Davi d Kl ei n | Photography by B et h Mann
Philip Semanchuk, Rachel Wertheimer, Scott Morningstar and Lee Morningstar, 13 — with help from Ray Hines, 3 — prepare for their monthly community work day, which can involve mulching, moving gravel and other tasks. 48
chapelhillmagazine.com
April 2019
wenty years ago, when Jean Byassee first heard about the Arcadia cohousing development in Chapel Hill, she thought, “That’s the way I want to live.” At the time, she and her husband, Jim, were not ready to make the move – they didn’t want to uproot their teenage sons. But they liked the values of cohousing communities, especially the emphasis on knowing your neighbors. In 2001, architect Giles Blunden began work on a new cohousing community in Carrboro called Pacifica, and five years later the first homeowners moved in. Jean and Jim were all in. “We wanted to live where there would be a variety of ages,” she says, “in a sort of old-fashioned neighborhood where children were playing and older people living and teenagers coming and going.” Scott Morningstar and his wife, Ronni Zuckerman, have been at Pacifica since the beginning. They chose Pacifica because they wanted to raise their children in a place that valued community. Pacifica’s central space is pedestrian-only, so kids