Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Businesses inside cohousing or nearby or....

[Hank Obermayer (hobermayer]

Mmariner writes:
>- How about a coho site in an existing mixed-use urban site where business
>structures were already intermixed with residential or where residential
>units were built above the business?  The facilities issues could be
>lessened.   Perhaps existing businesses could be brought into the coho plans
>in some small (or large) degree.

This is difficult to do because of zoning issues except in the middle of
cities, and even then only some cities. My understanding is that Old
Oakland Cohousing is going to be in a mixed use rehabbed building. I'm sure
Joani can speak to that. It is still not community businesses, but there is
nothing stopping someone in the cohousing community from opening a business
in the building.

SF EcoVillage is trying to buy a few houses on one block, like N-Street or
On Going Concerns. We are looking in two small areas, one of which is a
very small park with a mixture of residential buildings and mixed use
buildings (residential above storefronts) looking onto it. We seriously
considered two neighboring buildings that would have given us 6 units of
housing with two storefronts underneath. Both storefronts are occupied by a
non-profit community arts group offering art classes, mural tours, etc. If
we had bought the buildings we probably would have tried to create some
sort of TIC/co-ownership agreement with the nonprofit. They would like to
buy the buildings themselves, but don't have the money. As it is, they will
probably be evicted by the new owners.




Hank Obermayer
hobermayer [at] igc.apc.org
San Francisco Eco-Village (for lack of a better name)