Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cars per unit

[Kay Argyle (argyle]

> We are asking to have our
> parking area reduced to 1.5 parking stalls per unit.

Based on our experience -- Don't do it.

The only predictable thing about the demographics of your final (after
move-in) membership is that you can't predict it.  The present pattern in
car ownership is likely to change.  Any pattern is.

Our founding members envisioned residents getting rid of their cars.  It
hasn't happened.

Wasatch Commons has 26 units, 26 covered parking spots, 18 uncovered, and
four handicapped.  I think all but two, possibly three, adult residents (out
of about 38, including grown-up "kids") own a vehicle, and some own two or
more.  Plus there's our community pickup, and the parents want to get a
community van for carpooling.  I haven't actually counted, but at night
everything but the handicapped spots are full, and sometimes them too, so
there must be around 44 vehicles.

There's no spare parking for guests.  We have events at the common house
with outside guests at least once a month, I'd guess.  The street parking
has been okay until now, but they are narrowing our road from an 80-ft
right-of-way down to 30, and we have a subdivision going in across from us.

Personally, I spent 20+ years without a car, and never planned to own one,
but after three years of increasing frustration with the inadequate mass
transit near us (shopping takes hours, I can't go out at night ...), I am
concluding I need to get one to stay sane.  The criteria I've always used
for where I would live -- good bus routes, near work, shopping, a library, a
park -- all got discarded in favor of cohousing.  I join a group which
advocates for a walkable community, so now I need a car.  How's that for
irony.

Kay
Wasatch Commons
Salt Lake City, Utah
argyle [at] mines.utah.edu
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*

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