Re: Low cost housing | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: James Kacki (jimkackimts.net) | |
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 12:08:53 -0700 (PDT) |
So what happened? Are you still planning a CoHo project? James On 13-May-08, at 1:22 PM, Brian Bartholomew wrote:
The messages about affordable cohousing, I think, are still confusing "affordable" with "low cost.""Affordable" housing is a government defined concept that varies from location to locationIf we could talk in terms of "low cost," instead of "affordable," it might be closer to what people are complaining doesn't exist on this list or in cohousing.The group I was a part of was willing to pay a maximum total buy-in per family of $125K. We had a good percentage of people doing social work and working in nonprofits, and that number was sane given their income. There was a strong interest by some in trying to shrink that to $50K. City mandates pushed the minimum up to $225K, which was the ordinary commercial price in the area for a subdivision constructed by a builder. Here is a quick breakdown of how city and county zoning prevented us from building low-cost housing: Some of us wanted to self-build in an evolving campsite manner. Others of us wanted site-built conventional-looking houses. We internally agreed we could live together if we separated the two camps with a visual screen like a row of evergreen trees. The city indicated that any unusual subdivision would have to meet the requirements of a Planned Unit Development (PUD). We were willing to live with a crushed limerock road draining to shallow grass-filled ditches. This kind of road would support fire trucks just fine. There is a lot of this style of road in neighborhoods in the county, however we wanted to build much closer in to the city so we were on a bus line and could bike commute. A PUD required asphalt roads, curbs, storm drains, sidewalks, streetlights. Being a PUD, all house foundation footprints would have to be approved up front, at the same time. There could be no evolving sequence of ever-more substantial houses on one lot over 15 years. Being a PUD means the whole development is on one set of building permits. To close these permits and get off the construction loan and onto individual mortgages, everything would have to be built and finished in less than 2 years. This timeline requires a professional builder. That means pro builder prices, conventional mortgage instead of out of cashflow, conventionally SIZED mortgage. Tents, pop-up camper trailers, and Winnebagos were not city-acceptable living quarters for any amount of time, even during construction. Permanent mobile home trailers were not zoning-mixable with site-built permanent houses in the same PUD. Mobile home trailers might be acceptable during 1-2 years of construction, if they were removed immediately after contruction completion. Existing zoning was for site-built permanent houses. Government grants are simply your own tax money handed back to you. They are just a cheap accounting trick. There is no net reduction in resources used, and therefore no improvement in sustainability. We did not pursue such things. Brian _________________________________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
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Terminology Suggestion Sharon Villines, May 12 2008
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Re: Terminology Suggestion John Faust, May 13 2008
- Re: Terminology Suggestion Marganne, May 14 2008
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Low cost housing Brian Bartholomew, May 13 2008
- Re: Low cost housing James Kacki, May 13 2008
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Re: Low cost housing Brian Bartholomew, May 13 2008
- Re: Low cost housing Sharon Villines, May 13 2008
- Re: Low cost housing Brian Bartholomew, May 14 2008
- Re: Low cost housing Bruce Shimizu, May 14 2008
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Re: Terminology Suggestion John Faust, May 13 2008
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