Re: Ratio of Common House size to Unit Size
From: Raines Cohen (rc2-coho-Lraines.com)
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 19:31:01 -0700 (MST)
On 3/10/03 7:57 PM, Diane Simpson <coho [at] theworld.com> wrote:

>I'm doing some research to figure out if communities with smaller units
>have larger common houses.
>
>Our average unit size is 825 square feet
>Our common house is programmed to be 4800 square feet
>
>So our units average about 17% the size of our common house.
>Does this common house size seem about right? Too large? Too small?
>I am not looking to find out if it seats the correct number of people.
>I am simply trying to figure out where it is on the scale of
>common house sizes overall in relation to all the other cohousing
>communities out there.

More than relation to unit size, I'd think that relation to # of people 
is important, plus to # of units.

At Swan's Market Coho (Oakland, CA), we have a larger dining area than we 
need for the # of residents of the community, intentionally so in order 
to accomodate additional people, affiliate members joining from our 
adjacent affordable rental apartments and nearby folks, guests and 
relatives.

Since I've been working on The Cohousing Network's database to support 
our upcoming directory and annual report, I've got some data that might 
be helpful for this regard:

We have info on CH size supplied by 56 of the 61 cohousing communities in 
the United States completed in the past 12 years that we've had completed 
cohousing communities in the US, with 3341 people (including 1006 kids) 
in 1438 units (avg. 2.35 residents/unit, 2.74 adults per kid) on 883 
acres.

The average Common House for these communities (excluding Pine Street 
Coho in Amherst, which has no CH as such) is 3657 square feet.

The average CH is 66.90 square feet per resident.

The average CH is 154 square feet per unit.

Obviously, there is no such thing as an "average" coho community (aren't 
we all a little above average?); the ratios are different for larger and 
smaller communities; I'll see if any interesting data pops out when I 
look at that.

Raines

P.S. I just got word that we got data on the 4 missing communities, so 
I'll incorporate it into any future reports.

Raines Cohen <my initials,2,dash,coho,dash,L at my first name .com>

  Member, Swan's Market Coho [Oakland, CA] <http://www.swansway.com/>
Where a neighboring "21st unit" rental price has been reduced.

  Member, Berkeley [CA] Cohousing (moved by bicycle!)
Where the Shed committee is figuring out where stuff can go.

  Facilitator, East Bay Cohousing [on hiatus] <http://www.ebcoho.org/>
Where a "Coho with a Clubhouse" meeting will be @ Swan's this Friday eve.

  Boardmember, The Cohousing Network <http://www.cohousing.org/>
Making travel arrangements for the Boulder conference, Jun 19-22!


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