Re: Affordability -- House and lot costs
From: Tom Patton (tomunison.com)
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 94 11:39 CDT
Martin Tracy wrote:

> 
> So I need to find a new name, and perhaps a new mailing list, for the 
> oxymoron I currently call <affordable cohousing>.  What would you call a 
> group of 12 to 40 households who have gathered together to live in proximity 
> and form a mutually supportive environment for themselves and their children? 
> Ownership of each dwelling is private, and ownership of the extensive common 
> facilities is shared, because this group enjoys sharing.  Some households 
> have bought professionally designed and constructed homes.  Others, because 
> of financial or environmental concerns, have designed and built their own. 
> Perhaps they have helped each other build.  Perhaps they have had occasional 
> frame-raising celebrations, like the barn-raisings of former times.  Perhaps 
> they have shared houses during construction.


This sounds great...I especially think that the sharing of houses
during construction is a great idea.  I've always thought one approach
would to be buy or build a large structure on a piece of land that's large
enough to eventually accomodate a co-housing communitiy.  If this were a
dilapidated house that could be fixed up, or something cheap and self-
built like a dome or bare bones straw-bale construction, it seems it would
be quite affordable.  After construction and/or fixing up the large unit,
a group could move in, and each person or subgroup could move out and
build their own residence as they had the means to do so. (or, if possible,
move old houses onto the property...I know this can be a *very* cheap means of
aquiring a house if you have the land for it...I've got a friend who got 2
houses this way for free.  All he had to do was pay to have them moved, about
$3000 each - they were small houses and were going to be torn down if
nobody wnated them.  This may warrant a thread of its own, though) 

Over time, the original structure could serve as a common house, and a
portion of it could be preserved as livable space for people joining the
community.  Somewhere that they can stay while constructing their own
home.  Or even just let people live there as rentals or guests or whatever.

Financing a venture like this would probably be a nightmare.  I don't
really know too much about this stuff, and would like to hear any
suggestions.  It seems that 1 advantage is that there's a relatively large
group of people buying only a single structure and the land.  This may
make it possible to have a big enough down payment -- even if the group
members aren't extremely cash-rich -- to qualify for appropriate financing.

Well, back to work...

-tom
(only 1, count 'em 1, day 'til vacation! :))

  -----------------------------------\/---------------------------------
   Tom Patton                                      Unison Software
   tom_patton [at] unison.com                           Austin, Texas USA
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