A Vancouver development company wants to introduce a rental concept that is gaining ground in major cities in the U.S.

It’s called coliving rental, and Rize Alliance Properties hopes to build the first project of its kind in the Lower Mainland.

By the time Rize Alliance gets to do this here, the boutique real-estate developer expects it will have already gained valuable lessons. How and where? In its first foray into the U.S., the company is going to build a coliving rental project near UCLA in Los Angeles.

Benn Duffell, vice president of development with Rize Alliance, describes coliving rental as a “modern form of communal living”.

“Residents are given a private bedroom in a furnished multibedroom unit with shared living areas,” Duffell told the Straight in a phone interview.

Think of it as a swanky version of living with roommates.

In Vancouver, some people, often unrelated to each other, rent a single detached home and share the house and expenses. This is known as collective housing.

Another form of shared living is cohousing, where each household in a group of neighbours owns a private house and shares common facilities like a separate amenity building and playground for children.

Coliving rental takes a key feature of these two housing models, which is community-building, then incorporates it into purpose-built rental developments.

“We’re particularly interested in the focus on community in these places, because it’s about learning to live with a group of people and providing that group with shared amenities that encourage interaction and the development of a community,” Duffell explained.

In its Los Angeles project, Rize Alliance is building a multilevel development with 18 units. These units have four to five bedrooms each, for a total of 80 bedrooms.

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