In Vermillion, South Dakota, a group of long-time residents has started building Dakota Prairie Commons, a cohousing development that organizers say would be the first of its kind in the state. Founding member Betty Smith said cohousing is designed to intentionally create community, with shared gatherings and meals centered on a large common house.
Cohousing, as Smith described it, uses small private homes with the common house as the centerpiece for residents’ regular social life. At Dakota Prairie Commons, Smith said the campus will also be built around walkability, with footpaths connecting the homes. She said the development will be vehicle-free in the campus area, while parking and garages will sit along the outskirts rather than inside the main walkable portion.
Smith, a former University of South Dakota professor who taught city planning and zoning, said she began considering the cohousing concept more than a decade ago. She said the group has since secured both land and a developer, with the site covering 5 acres of a larger 15-acre plot purchased by AMS Building Systems just east of downtown Vermillion. Smith said the project is planned for 28 homes, to be opened in stages over the next few years, and she said ten equity members have already put up financial stakes and are confirmed to move in when it opens.
Other members in the project, whom the group calls “explorers,” have made smaller financial commitments, Smith said, to receive access to planning and community information while deciding whether cohousing is the right fit. Smith also said one of the project goals is to ease Vermillion’s housing crunch by adding homes to the market, and she said one real estate broker has offered discounts on brokerage fees for residents moving into cohousing who also want to sell their existing homes.
Smith said a 2022 housing study showed the city is missing housing for people who work there, for faculty at USD, and for senior citizens, and she linked the shortage to challenges in attracting developers to build in the area. In her description, the delay can extend to new faculty members who wait about two years before a house comes on the market, with the group expecting that many residents will eventually sell homes to participate in the development.
Organizers said the project has drawn interest beyond Vermillion itself. Becky Rider, an equity member, said in an account shared with News Watch that “People will move from other parts of the country to where there’s cohousing because the community to them is more important than exactly where it’s located,” describing how the group would not need to recruit all 28 households from within the local area.
Smith said the wider community has also engaged with the idea of cohousing, including through a recently hosted open house where city residents could ask questions about the development. She said she and other members also have had assistance from Ph.D. students studying sustainability at USD, who have offered help with native grass design and with composting and recycling systems for the project site.
As the group designed what it wanted Dakota Prairie Commons to feel like day to day, Smith said members held discussions through small-circle conversations and brainstorming sessions. She said the process highlighted priorities that differ from some older cohousing communities, particularly because many of those communities are located in more temperate coastal towns far from South Dakota winters. Smith said the group’s discussions led to specific shared-space ideas, including fire pits, community gardens, and outdoor classrooms.
Equity members described how shared goods and common facilities are expected to support sustainability. Diane Leja said she envisions a place in the common house where residents can share items useful on occasion rather than buying everything individually, and Susanne Skyrm said the group’s sustainability focus includes building practices intended to be more efficient than having large separate yards and large houses for every household.
Rider and other members acknowledged that cohousing can require trade-offs. Rider said the work of planning and organizing over years sets it apart from building a regular neighborhood, and she said it is not inexpensive to pay for land, a portion of the common house, and a private home. Leja said the group sees the payoff as a return to older patterns of neighborly interaction, describing block parties and barbecues on local streets as something that has become less common.