Urban Affordable Cooperative Cohousing Developments
From: Joelyn Malone (JKMalonecomcast.net)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:37:50 -0800 (PST)
Responding to 2-5-09 message from:
Jennifer <jms1970us [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: [C-L]_ Urban Affordable Cooperative Cohousing Developments

"I'm a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, and I?m completing my degree in regional planning. My master?s thesis research is on urban affordable cooperative cohousing developments. I am looking for information about urban affordable cohousing and cooperative/cohousing hybrid developments possibly in the New England or New York metro areas."
Jennifer - I'm very excited to see this. I'm also looking for existing models 
of affordable cooperative cohousing, and ideas on appropriate markets and 
business models for these. Monterey Cohousing Community in Minneapolis, where I 
live, is a great example. But of course not anywhere near New York or New 
England.

I've just taken on the role of Interim Executive Director of the NorthCountry 
Cooperative Foundation here in Minneapolis, and have been thinking a lot about 
existing cooperative enterprise development models that could provide a much 
sounder foundation than what's currently available, for how small groups of 
committed individuals can become effective business partners with developers to 
create cohousing communities. There are lots of resources out there that we can 
make use of, that typical cohousing core groups probably don't know about or 
have easy access to.

I'd love to partner with you to exchange ideas on the possible benefits of this 
model, and where this market niche idea might best be applied (cities where 
conditions are favorable, including critical numbers of people interested in 
cohousing). I'd also love to hear from anyone else who is interested.

The web site for the National Association of Housing 
Cooperatives,http://www.coophousing.org/ is a great place to look if you can't find 
specific info on Cohousing cooperatives. They have toolkits for developing cooperative 
housing, but their focus is still on nonprofit developers being the initiators, not the 
future coop residents themselves. With the foreclosure crisis, there may be affordable 
properties available that would make great "retrofit" cohousing communities. 
It's something we plan to look at for here in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

Joelyn Malone
9520926-8554
Monterey Cohousing Community
... where I'm now wearing yet another hat in addition to running Malone 
Consulting and Cohousing Advocates!


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