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

[R Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

You have two related questions here:  One is about the kind of community you 
want, and the other is about the market demographics in your region.

Three bedroom units are most likely to attract growing families — if they can 
afford them.  One of the real estate rules I've encountered is that cohousing 
common house amenities are worth about one bedroom.  That is to say, buying a 
two bedroom unit in cohousing is comparable in price to buying a three bedroom 
single family nearby.

For the units you build on spec, I would definitely recommend a mix of ones, 
twos and threes.  Twos will be more affordable to young families with one 
child.  If you have plenty of land and/or a smart architect, you can come up 
with designs that easily allow for the addition of one or two bedrooms with 
another bath — either by building out, or building up.  These could be very 
popular with candidate members who aren't certain about the long-term viability 
of living / staying in cohousing.

At Cornerstone — an urban village complex on a very tight site — our 32 units 
represent a broad mix beginning with small one bedrooms under 600 sq ft, all 
the way up to four bedrooms at near 1,900 sq ft.  A little less than half of 
our units (most in townhouse format) are three or four bedrooms.  Median size 
is around 1,200 sq ft.  For what it's worth, here are net (condo) floor areas, 
in square feet, for all 32 units.

575
577
611
614
625
793
798
812
814
927
1,007
1,074
1,077
1,086
1,148
1,194
1,221
1,221
1,400
1,454
1,548
1,608
1,612
1,638
1,663
1,698
1,700
1,767
1,767
1,767
1,775
1,866

R Philip Dowds AIA
Cornerstone Cohousing
175 Harvey Street, Unit 5
Cambridge, MA 02140
617.354.6094

PS: I think we met at the New Haven Sociocracy conference.

On Mar 24, 2012, at 8:17 AM, Christina Smillie wrote:

> 
> Hi, I'm in a forming multigenerational community in Connecticut, 
> planning about 33 units clustered on 30 acres, leaving plenty of land 
> for farming, conservation, recreation.
> 
> I've been tasked with looking at how other communities decided mix of 
> number and size of units, and how this has worked out for them (i.e, 
> certain units hard to sell, others snapped up, wish there were more? Too 
> many 1 bdrms mean not enough children, etc.? Too many multibedrms 
> unsold? Some units too small or too large?)
> 
> We don't need to reinvent the wheel if such info is available somewhere, 
> so first of all just looking for resources.
> Although if here is a list, we might want to query how it's worked out, 
> and whether any one person's opinion can speak for their community anyway.
> 
> If there is no such document, perhaps the random folks on this email 
> list could describe
> #1 How your community made this decision
> #2 For your community what is the mix of size units, by square footage, 
> #bedrooms, and # baths.
> #3. Briefly, how is this working for your community?
> Thanks
> Tina Smillie, Green Haven, New Haven CT
> 
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