Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Governance & Income Inequality [ was Common house design, rooms, and room sizes?

[Emilie Parker (emilie.v.parker]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
wrote:

> Push comes to shove when people have different aims. That's why I think
> low income cohousing communities need to be low income cohousing
> communities and not a mix of low cost units, "affordable" units, and market
> rate+ units.


Yes we'll all have to be on the same page about our values and aims.

"Affordable" is through programs administered by the county to assist
people who qualify and are selected.  County guidelines for incomes have to
be something like between 20,000 and $45,000 per year for one person family
to qualify for that.  Other resident's incomes will probably be easily in
the twice that range.

Our aim is to build our lives sustainably with an art focus and I think we
probably need to have an agreed upon strategy for dealing with income
inequality going into this as part of our values.  I'm not sure what that
would look like.

One strategy we've discussed for physical structures is to build the homes
with lower cost fixtures and amenities, but very good net 0 construction.
Once we get occupancy approvals artists who are homeowners are free to
invest in their own homes and have their homes upgraded at any time or do
whatever upgrades and improvements or replacements they want.



-----------------
Emilie Parker
emilie.v.parker [at] gmail.com
303-317-4558 main
240-350-8533 cell