Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordability and Risk

[/PN=GAGIS/PRMD=ICBC/ADMD=TELECOM . CANADA/C=CA/ (/PN=GAGIS/PRMD=ICBC/ADMD=TELECOM.CANADA/C=CA/]

  I've been reading all of the debat on Risk and the difficulty in obtaining
financing for Cohousing, and the earlier thread on affordability and I think
that in some (weak) ways they are related.

  It seems consensus that it is hard to convince bankers/governments to
approve Cohousing in a large part due to the fact that they don't have any
experience with it.  Once there is a larger number of functioning Cohousing
communities it will be easier to convince the banks et al to take a risk on
them becuase they will have a basis for comparision. The problem is that in
addition to building Cohousing a lot of people are also trying to do housing
that is affordable to lower income peoplem, which is an excellent goal, but
serves to increase the risk factor and make it more difficult to secure
funding (unless you can get government help anyway).  I would suggest that as
time goes on and more and more functioning Cohousing communities exist in
North America it will be easier to get both approval and funding, which in
turn will make it easier to include more 'non-standard' features like
affordable housing.

Gary Gisel