Cohousing-L Mailing List: Converting existing housing to Cohousing

[Fred H Olson WB0YQM (fholson]

The cohousing core group that I am now part of is called Andersen Lane 
Cohousing (ALCG).  ALCG has proposed taking a block of existing inner city 
housing - (12 structures, 22 units, - 6 are single family and 6 are 2,3 & 4 
unit). We would close the alley, remove the fences and garages to make
a common court yard and build or adapt space to be common space 
and provide alternate parking and storage space.

I've read a bit about N Street and believe there are significant
differences as well as similarities that we might learn from.
One difference is our inner city site.
The site is not particularly desireable as is and many of us 
have established homes elsewhere so we are not inclined to move to 
the site till we are confident that cohousing will happen (mainly the 
closure of the alley.  So an evolutionary approach is going to be hard to 
get started.  

   On the other hand the housing market in the area is depressed 
and many of current owners on the block have wanted to sell their
houses but have not been able to for a price that suited them.  It's
a buyers market.  We are currently debating a negotiating strategy.
We are leaning toward negotiating purchased agreements or options
with contingencies related to acquiring all of most of the properties on 
the block.  We are open to an evolutionary approch once some minimal
core has been established.  And indeed we will try to recruit existing 
owners tho so far we have not had much interest.  The alley with
garages and its proposed removal without a clear replacement is
a big deterent.

Any advice on acquisition strategies?  or other comments for that matter.

Fred
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Fred H. Olson   fholson [at] uci.com     Sysop of COHOUSING-L mailing list
1221 Russell Av N; Minneapolis, MN 55411        voice: (612) 588-9532
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