RE: Affordable housing
From: Geoff Mamlet (mamletid.WING.NET)
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 95 21:41 CST
This thread on affordable cohousing has been great.  I've really appreciated
all the good information on programs that we should investigate, and on the
experiences other groups have had.

In the group I'm working with, Commonweal (Boston area), there's a slightly
different idea on affordability that's being floated, and I wondered whether
other groups have considered something like this:

We've been planning a community of 30 units, all at market rate.  We've been
given to understand that the town where we are buying land to develop has a
strong interest in gaining more affordable housing.  The idea is to offer to
add units that will qualify as "affordable" in return for being able to 
increase the density of our development (we are already having to go through
a rezoning process just to be able to cluster units, instead of being subject
to the existing "snob" zoning of 1 unit per acre).  So instead of a community
of 30 market rate units, we would become, say, a community of 30 market rate
and 5 "affordable" units.

If we price the "affordable" units based on the incremental cost to us for
adding them (e.g., we were going to put in the road, septic, common house,
etc. already, to service the market-rate units), we should be able to get the
price low enough to qualify.

How does this sound?  Have other groups explored similar ideas?  I particularly
like the minimal red tape, compared to other "affordable housing" alternatives
I've heard about.  We're not interested in adding more delay to our development
process.

Geoff Mamlet
Commonweal

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