Re: The "Burden on Local Schools" Argument against Development
From: Elizabeth Stevenson (tamgoddessattbi.com)
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 17:02:01 -0600 (MDT)
The other route, maybe less successful, but proven in city after city, is
that mixed income housing has proven to be more stable than both all-low and
all-high income housing. If the city is under some mandate to build
affordable housing, this could also be a strong point for your project,
since your group would be doing all the work, and the city gets the credit.

Having a respected local architect willing to make your project fit into the
neighborhood would help.

Does anyone know where to find data to back up these assertions? I know that
it exists somewhere.

In areas not saturated with cohousing, the prices tend to be above-market.
I'm sure there are several people who could corroborate that.

Liz
> 
> Local zoning in most towns in the area we are looking at
> have minimum lot sizes, minimum distances between houses
> etc that prohibit co-housing.  BUT Massachusetts has a
> law, often referred to as the "anti-snob zoning law",
> which *overrides* local zoning prohibitions to developments
> that provide a certain percentage of "affordable housing".
> So part of our project plan is to go in through this "back
> door".  The reason we still need local support, though, is
> because the town can accept these projects gracefully or
> they can fight tooth and nail -- the latter would delay our
> project unacceptably, so we try to win local support.
> 
> We looking to buy several acres, build our 28-32 units on
> a couple of those acres and leave the rest as open space.
> But no way could that ever fit with your standard local
> residential zoning rules around here!!
> 
> That's the short story. :-)  If you want to long story I'll
> leave it to Mosaic Commoners who have been involved with
> the project longer than I have.
> 
> Peace,
> D!

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