Coliving is a new word for an arrangement students have used for a century: your own bedroom, shared everything else, one lease that covers the bills. What makes the modern version different from a house-share is that the sharing is designed and managed rather than improvised between strangers on a joint tenancy.
How it works here
Every room in both of our buildings is a private bedroom inside a four-bedroom suite. The suite has one bathroom and one kitchen, with a dining or sitting area. Four bedrooms, four people, one shared set of rooms between them.
Your lease is for your bedroom. This is the part that matters most and gets explained least.
On a joint tenancy in a shared house, four tenants sign one agreement for the whole property. If one of them leaves in February, the rent does not shrink — the remaining three cover it and go looking for a fourth. In a coliving suite, each bedroom is its own agreement. Someone leaving is the operator’s problem to fill, not yours.
Coliving, a shared apartment and a residence place
| Coliving suite | Shared apartment | University residence | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who your lease is with | The operator, for your room | Usually all tenants jointly | The University |
| If someone moves out | The operator refills it | Your problem, and your money | Handled by the University |
| Furniture | Included | Almost never | Included |
| Utilities | Included in the rent | Separate accounts, usually yours | Included |
| Tied to your registration | No | No | Yes |
| Who you live with | Placed by the operator | Whoever you found | Placed by the University |
Coliving sits between the other two. It has residence’s convenience — furnished, bills included, someone to call when the heat fails — without being tied to your enrolment. It has a shared apartment’s independence without the joint-liability problem.
What is included, and what is not
Included in the four-weekly rent: heat, water, power, Wi-Fi, the furnished room with the bed made, laundry in the building, on-site maintenance. No utility bill, no service fee, no application fee.
Not included, and worth saying plainly:
- A private bathroom. One bathroom serves the four bedrooms in a suite, in both buildings.
- Cross-building access. The fitness centre, the laundry rooms and the lounge at Garneau Towers are for Garneau Towers residents. A room at University Tower does not include them.
- Pets. Neither building permits them, and neither does a suite shared with three other people who were not asked.
Who coliving suits
It works for people arriving from somewhere else with a suitcase and a start date — international students in particular, because you can take a video tour, apply and sign from another time zone, and walk into a furnished room with the utilities already on.
It works when you want your own door but not your own everything: your own bedroom to close, a kitchen with other people in it.
It works when the alternative is a joint tenancy with people you met a week ago.
Who it does not suit
Say this honestly, because the wrong resident is unhappy and so is everyone in their suite.
If you need a private bathroom, this is not it. Four bedrooms share one, and no arrangement changes that.
If you want to choose your own housemates from scratch, a shared house gives you more control. We will hold rooms in the same suite for people applying together where we can, but otherwise placement is ours, made on year, programme and what you tell us about sleep and tidiness.
If you keep unusual hours in a way that needs isolation, a studio will serve you better. A shared kitchen is a shared kitchen.
If you want a pet. No.
The money, plainly
Rooms run from $560 to $880 every four weeks depending on the room and the building. Rent is quoted every four weeks because that is the billing period — a nine-month term is nine and three-quarter payments rather than nine.
You pay one security deposit at signing and nothing else before you move in. Under Alberta’s Residential Tenancies Act it is capped at one month’s rent and returned with interest after you move out and the room is inspected.
The full price list is on the rooms page, and each room has its own page with its own deposit.