Re: Unit mix/size
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:34:35 -0700 (PDT)
>> I just heard about another possible model for designing units that
>> accommodate people on a budget, single or otherwise. Two or three large
>> bedrooms with their own bathrooms around a common kitchen-living room. 

I've known people who set up these arrangements not in cohousing. There are 
many group houses in places like DC, NY, college towns, etc. Unless the people 
were friends before they rent a place and move in, these houses work best if 
one person rents an apartment or buys the unit and rents to the others. Then 
that person is the ultimate buck stops here person.

The larger community needs one person they can expect to supervise the unit. I 
live next to a person who used to have roommates continuously. It was very 
difficult just to listen to all the problems and some were not so small.

Without one person owning the unit and managing it,  the community will be in 
the small hotel business. This is a lot of responsibility on top of learning 
how to get a cohousing community up and running. I can't over emphasize what 
life is like with 43 new households, all of whom have just moved. They may be 
happy refugees but the dislocation experience is overwhelming when no one knows 
where their clothes or dishes or checkbooks are. And everyone has to figure out 
where the best cleaners is and where to get a car fixed, etc.

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





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