Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Enviromnental efficiency comparison of std housing & cohousing

[Bob Morrison (morrison]

On Thu, 15 Dec 1994 18:49:14, bob [at] cygnus-group.com (Bob Lilienfeld) wrote:

> Subject: Environmental Savings

>I have been lurking for a few weeks now, and am quite fascinated with
>CoHousing. I am the editor of The ULS Report -- ULS means Use Less Stuff,
>and would like to include a story on CoHousing in either the Jan-Feb or
>March-Apr issues.

>Here's my question: Can anyone provide me with documented evidence
>regarding the environmental efficiency of CoHousing vs standard single
>family housing? Where are the savings -- Food? Energy? Garbage?

  I can see an immediate flaw in the logic of the above statement. Some co-
housing consists of single-family houses and some is multi-family houses.
If you compare standard single-family houses with multi-family cohousing, you
are comparing apples and oranges. The only valid comparisons are between 
structurally similar (that is, single-family, townhouse, and apartment-type)
cohousing and non-cohousing residences.
  Most of the "green" designs that I have seen (here and in print) for co-
housing would also be doable from an engineering standpoint for standard
housing, but as a practical matter are very rarely done for standard multi-
family housing. What makes cohousing different in this case is that the
residents are in control of the process from day one. For conventional
multifamily housing, the developers are in control and the mindset of devel-
opers is such that "green" designs are almost unheard of (at least around
here).
  There are some environmental efficiencies in cohousing that would not be
doable in conventional housing. One example is that it is more energy-
efficient to cook for 30 people in a common-house kitchen than to cook for
10 households of 3 people each at home. Has anyone analyzed just how much
more energy-efficient it is? There are lots of examples besides this.

Bob Morrison

Home: Boxboro, MA               Work: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton, MA