Cohousing-L Mailing List: Why not?

[Trey Wedge (trey]

> The FIRST Danish communities were build by affluent people.
> 
> Until the entire building industry in this country accepts cohousing as
> something that's actually feasible, it's likely to stay relatively
> expensive. Certainly the banks look at it as "unconventional," which means
> (to them) "risky," and that alone will drive up the financing costs.
> 
> Further, why should cohousing be any less expensive to build than
> conventional housing? You have to do all the usual things - buy land, pay
> for professional services from architects, engineers, lawyers, etc. - AND
> you want to build extensive common facilities, AND you want a lot of client
> participation in the design process. 

>
> The "hard-nosed practical approach" is to recognize that there's no magic
> about cohousing with respect to cost. I look at it this way: if a household
> can't afford to buy a conventional house, then it can't afford cohousing.
> Why SHOULDN'T this be true?

     My <naive> impression was that the attraction of co-housing is
     economy. If the only attraction is community, why aren't people
     doing the same kind of community planning in conventional 
     housing? There is nothing stopping people from building a 
     neighborhood in the same way that they build a cohousing 
     community, and they would have none of the disadvantages. 
     For that matter, what are the advantages of cohousing that are
     unavailable in conventional housing? 
 
     My impressions of the economies in cohousing are:   
 
      1. No developer profit.
      2. Common use items shared instead of duplicated.
      3. Common areas shared amoung a larger number of people
         reducing the per person cost.
      4. Resources analyzed for community use more carefully. 
      5. Any others?

     So, if there is no economy in this approach, again, why do it?

Rhythmystic Gypsy Outlaw of Gravity Exotic Eye Wordplayer of Workgames
@-->---Trey Wedge 115 Durham, Menlo Park, Ca 94025 408 447-6725---<--@
Performance Analyst Hewlett-Packard 19111 Pruneridge Ave. Cupertino CA
             Whoa-Ho, All I want to know is...........