Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Mix of unit size?

[Christina Smillie (smilliec]

Thanks to both Nancy and Sharon for your input. Very very helpful. 
Anyone else have info for us? Thanks.
tina

On 3/24/2012 12:31 PM, Nancy Baumeister wrote:
> Sharon hit it right on for our community.
>
> Our smallest is a 2 bedroom. If we had built 1 bedrooms there would be interest
> but the banks and architects probably drove that decision. I know I would like
> to downsize from the 1000 sf 2 bedroom that I live in- 675 sf sounds nice. Or
> actually what I would almost prefer is a shared kitchen/bath arrangement with
> private space for 2-3 bedroom/livingroom sets. My understanding is that the
> kitchen/bath part is the expensive part to build while bedrooms don't add that
> much extra cost.
>
> We were all sold at completion of construction.
>
> The general picture:
> Four 4 -bedroom: currently occupied mostly by couples who use the extra space as
> offices.
> Fourteen 3-bedrooms: occupied by 1 to 4 people
> Sixteen 2-bedrooms: occupied by 1-2 people
>
> Sales since move-in fall 2007):
> One 2 BR internal trade fr a 3 BR (growing family)
> One 2 BR outside the community
> One 3 BR outside the community
> One 3BR by community member upsizing from 2 BR (growing family).
>
> I think it is true that small is not a stopper for folks who want to live in
> community.  They will figure out how to live in the small space or plan on
> getting more space as it becomes available.
>
> I am interested in this general theme of house size becuase I think that as
> climate change and peak oil become increasin burdensome people will start
> compacting into smaller spaces.