Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing and car sharing

[Raines Cohen (coho-L]

"Rob Sandelin" <floriferous [at] email.msn.com> wrote on 9/21/99 3:24 PM:

>I doubt cohousing will ever evolve much in the way of car ownership sharing.

I wouldn't be too sure about that... cars in an urban setting such as 
ours [downtown Oakland, CA] are more of a liability than an asset, with 
only one space per unit in our secure garage, onstreet parking metered 
and limited, and a nearby (uncovered, insecure) lot costing nearly $1,000 
per year to rent a space (not to mention high insurance costs).

We have the transportation infrastructure here to make it viable to do 
without a car more often than not (unless you work somewhere off the 
grid). One of the key factors in my joining the group was the location: 1 
block from a subway hub (15 min to downtown San Francisco or Oakland 
airport), walking distance from major retail and restaurants, 1 block 
from 16 bus lines (including a new airport express, 5 blocks from ferry 
to SF and Amtrak to Silicon Valley, Sacramento, and points North, South, 
and East; 5 blocks from Greyhound.

As someone who lives car-free, works mostly at home and locally, and 
occasionally rents or borrows one for errands, I'll be leasing my unit's 
space to one of my neighbors. Towards that end, if anybody has economic 
models for setting prices or sample contracts for doing so, I'd 
appreciate pointers.

I've also had discussions with at least one other neighbor about possibly 
sharing an electric car.... we've made sure that our parking lot has a 
220-volt outlet in the right place to make it possible to put a 
fastcharger there.

Raines

Raines Cohen <coho-L [at] raines.com> <http://www.swansway.com>
  Member, Old Oakland [CA] Cohousing at Swan's Market
Where some of us are off to a Cabinet Meeting. ;-)

  and member, East Bay Cohousing [no site yet]
Which had a deep discussion of diversity at its last meeting.