Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cost Apportionment of Infrastructure

[Judy (BAXTER%EPIHUB]

RAYGASSER [at] delphi.com wrote (Nov 14) asking about ways of divying up common 
acquisition costs.  I hesitate to jump into this - as far as I can see, there
is no way to do this that is clearly "fair".  

At MoCoCo we delegated this task to a small group, and then the proposals were
evaluated at a meeting I missed, so I can't say a lot about the rationale. 
Basically, Common Space costs (and development costs) are being allocated
partly based on "footprint", ( I think that's 50%), and partly based on
finished + 1/2 unfinished square footage.** ) This all includes the cost of all
the land, the cost of the commons house, architects, PR, surveys, appraisals,
tunnels, walkways, etc. etc. etc.  I assume footprint comes out closer to per
household than per sq foot.  And basically I think the idea is a mixture. 
Somehow, seems unfair to charge 1 or 2 persons in a small unit as much as a
family of 5 in a large one - but also unfair? inequitable? to charge only by sq
footage and put so much cost onto larger units/households.  I wouldn't say I
*recommend* this solution, but I can live with it.

Judy Baxter, Monterey Cohousing Community, (MoCoCo)
Twin Cities Area, Minneapolis/St.Paul Minnesota
e-mail: baxter [at] epivax.epi.umn.edu