Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: defining the cohousing principle

[Kevin Wolf (kjwolf]

At 06:08 PM 04/13/00 -0500, Tara Ingram wrote:


>Here's an example similar to what you describe in Davis, CA.
>
>http://www.cohousing.org/Groups/n_street/

Hi all
Roger Berman did a fairly good job of listing actions and parameters that 
help advance affordable cohousing.  He left off a couple of items.

1.  Use less land per house.  Muir Commons was able to provide affordable 
units in part because it is ten units per acre.  N Street Cohousing is 
pursuing second story granny flats as a means of making the homes that come 
up for sale affordable.  Home prices are going up very fast in town and 
tenants in the community are trying to buy the absentee landlord owned 
homes. With the most recent house that was bought,  two renters went in as 
partners and got the bank to loan them enough money to double the size of 
the original house (1125 sq ft) by adding an 1125 sq foot granny flat.  Now 
two units sit on the same amount of land.    Over time, we anticipate 
increasing the number of units in the community by 50% without expanding on 
any new land.

2.  Rent in a retrofit community.  Roger mentioned renting as a means of 
creating affordability.  In N Street, almost every house was a rental 
before being bought.  Most of us rented out rooms in our houses when we 
bought them to help pay for the mortgage.  Because we offer landlords very 
stable and excellent renters, everyone has been willing to rent for 
significantly less than market.  The bad news is that some have been lax 
about fixing their homes as much as we would like, and it is more difficult 
to buy from them because their renter situation is so good.

Kevin


Kevin Wolf
N Street Cohousing Community member
724 N St, Davis, CA  95616
530-758-4211
kjwolf [at] dcn.davis.ca.us

To download my facilitation manual or other material on
consensus decision making, visit www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/kjwolf