Re: Affordability w/small homes?
From: Stuart Joseph (stuartcaercoburn.org)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:47:02 -0700 (PDT)
Marganne,

Marganne wrote:
April said:
I'm looking for a housing solution for myself. Cohousing is very attractive to me. I've been reading about cohousing for several years and recently joined a mailing list for people into small homes (less than 1,000 square feet). (The Small House Society
http://www.resourcesforlife.com/groups/smallhousesociety/resources.htm )

Because I live on a fixed income and do not qualify for most housing assistance programs, I can't afford any of the 'affordable' cohousing options. Based on my research on the small home list, I CAN afford to buy land and pay all building costs for well under $100,000 total.
I think that our project, Caer Coburn, would fit your bill. We are allowing folks to design and build their own house within some design criteria with the only size limit being a maximum of 2500 sq. feet. We are all looking at building smaller, energy efficient homes.
If you want to check us out, here's our website: http://www.caercoburn.org
I am willing to simplify my life, get creative, and live in about 500 square feet of well designed, energy efficient (green) home. Some people live very well in less than that amount.
One of our prospective members is doing that right now, he is living in CA in a house that is 360 square feet and he shares it with a grand piano! <grin>

He does plan to build a First Day Cottage, the smallest original design. You might want to look over their web site: http://firstdaycottage.com/

A number of us are also looking into building a First Day as well. Veda and I want to build a 24'X36' Cape.
Each house is actually designed for each client within the basic framework.

There is a First Day Builders group on Yahoo and John from First Day posted the following information. I think it is useful because it can give you a rough idea of what it would cost. Current kits cost $30.00 per square foot of livable space and the second floor the livable space is figured at standing height since the roof slopes. This means that there is less square footage than the first floor.

The prices for building is based upon your doing the bulk of the work yourself and some of us are talking about helping each other to build their houses. You can use the hour per square foot estimate to also figure the costs of hiring a carpenter or a helper to put the house up. First Day does have folks that have built First Days and are willing to build for others at reasonable rates, latest figure is $20.00 per hour. Be careful if you hire a carpenter because they might want to do things their own way and the FD's have to be built using their system, which is designed for inexperienced folks and carpenters seem to have "I know how to do it better" mentality and not follow the system.

BTW, I don't get anything for touting FD, I just believe that they are a great house and a way for folks to get affordable housing- something that Veda and I are trying to achieve.

"A rule of thumb that I use is to explain that the finished house will cost roughly twice what the kit costs. That is a very rough number and doesn't include things like a mound septic system(which can cost $25,000 alone). What it does include is:

foundation
plumbing
wiring
leach field septic
excavation for all of the above
well

Things like mile long driveways, running your power underground or anything to do with solar power are all outside our scope.

A simple 16' x 30' Firstday can be built in 15 weekends. NONE of the other designs can be. Again, a rough rule of thumb is to budget 1/2- 3/4 man hours per square foot that you build. The last time Sarah and I spoke, we figured they had about 800 man hours in their 24' x 32' New Cape. Bigger houses like Jody Johnson's obviously take much longer. The Saltbox takes the longest to build per square foot of any Firstday design. You should budget 3/4-1 man hour per square foot."




Can this scale of affordable housing be combined with cohousing in some successful manner? I've struggled over how to ask this list about this notion.
That is what we are trying to do at Caer Coburn and one of the reasons that we are letting folks design and build their own houses, this way they get to control the size and the cost themselves.
Some people cringe at the thought of living in a small home. One of the most difficult things people think they have with 'living small' is not having enough space. People tend to 'live large' in the United States. This list has discussed how many square feet a person needs to be comfortable and how it varies. It is very subjective. It's allot like people discounting cohousing because they don't believe in living with others by consensus can be successful for them.

I'd love to bring all the people from the small houses mailing list together with all of you so everyone could answer everyone else's questions. (Would make my job easier.)

What I'm asking is:
--Are there existing or formulating cohousing projects that use the small home concept? --Are there people like me who would consider cohousing in a project with smaller homes that cost less to build?
We would love to talk to you about the possibility of becoming a member of Caer Coburn.
Due to my circumstances, I'd like to find some sort of 'community' where I could live actively now and possibly for the remainder of my life. I feel certain there are many other people like me -- with very little or no family -- who like the idea of creating a family by choice.
That is a reason that folks choose co-housing, myself included. A number of our members, again including myself, who are looking at aging in place, all of us range in age from 40-60, though we would like to be multigenerational. Some of us have no children, some have grandchildren, and some have teenagers.
Is it possible to find/start a project like this?
I believe that we are and there might be others like that.
Here I go throwing my ideas into the virtual universe to see what happens. :-)
That is how things get created!

I wish you the best of luck.
Cheers!
Marganne

P.S. Thank you again, April, for bringing this up.
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--
Stuart Joseph, 802-463-1954
Project Director
Caer Coburn, a traditional village based upon  and intentional communities
Rockingham, Vermont, USA
http://www.caercoburn.org


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