Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: architects and developers

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Nov 22, 2003, at 9:22 AM, Diane Simpson wrote:

> Underground parking is very, very expensive--$10,000-$20,000 per 
> parking space. You're only building 18 units so you don't have very 
> many units to spread the costs over. Plus, you're building all small 
> units with no large units to help offset the costs of those small 
> units. That means you're going to have a bunch of very small, very 
> expensive units. And you're going to make five of the units 
> permanently affordable? Is the land trust going to buy them?

This is why you need a developer-type person. Whether they are a 
consultant, a lawyer, an architect, or whatever, you need a person who 
knows stuff like this off the top of their head so you know what you 
are up against in dollars and cents. It doesn't mean you can't do what 
you want to do if you can find creative ways to do it, but you need to 
know before you put a lot of energy into something what it will take to 
get it done.

As Diane said, success means follow through. How  much follow through 
do you have? What is your timeline? Can your group wait 10 years to get 
built?

One of the groups in Florida lost families to the problem of needing to 
get moved in and children settled in schools before the project could 
be started, much less completed. If your value is that children will 
not be changing schools once they are "in", the window for making 
commitments to cohousing becomes very short.

You need experts to shorten your "follow through" requirements as well 
as you financial risks.

Sharon
-----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org

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