Cohousing-L Mailing List: Hybrid between cohousing community and cooperative house?

[Bob Morrison (morrison]

  This is a follow-up to Sarito Whatley's recent posting on the shared house
his group is building in Calif., and an off-list discussion I had with him.
It is also related to the subject of affordable cohousing.
  Based on reading this list, it appears that there are some intractable
problems related to holding down the cost of cohousing in the U.S. And that 
means IMO that if we continue to do cohousing the way most people are doing
it, there is a large segment of the population that will be frozen out, that
is, people who are not quite prosperous enough to afford cohousing at market
rates but too prosperous on paper to qualify for the sort of government as-
sistance that would enable them to buy "affordable" cohousing. Of course 
there are exceptions, which have been discussed on the list, but most pro-
spective cohousers have geographic limitations that prevent them from living
in the few cohousing communites where people in the "gap" can be accommodated.
  One solution I would like to discuss further is the possibility of putting
an entire cohousing community under one roof, or at least putting far more
units in each building than is usually the case. I don't understand why this
setup is so rare in the U.S.  There are millions of people who live in condos
and apartments where there are 25 or more units under one roof, and not just
in big cities either. Some of these people can't wait to get into lower-
density homes, but others would be perfectly happy to continue living in a
setup similar to what they have if they could find a solution to problems
such as alienation. 
  Off-hand I can think of several coho communities that sort of fit the de-
scription I have in mind, such as Cardiff Place in Victoria, BC. Are there
any others?
  The thought I have is that if you build a coho community from scratch 
with all the units and common house under one roof, or convert an existing
building for this purpose, you can reduce the cost of units to the point
where most prospective members can afford them, even after factoring in the
need to put up large sums of money up front and the fact that the cost of
cohousing usually exceeds initial estimates. In other words, if you start
with a plan whose cost is 80% of what you can afford, it is very unlikely
that future cost increases will put the cost out of reach or force you to
overextend yourself financially.
  I can see two problems right off with this idea. One is that the possible
sites for doing this are limited by zoning, far more than for low-density
cohousing. The other is that it will be difficult to draw people who are
currently living in single-family houses and duplexes to a place like this.
So what I would propose is to have two cohousing communities within a few
miles of each other, a low-density one for people who want low density and
can afford it, and a high-density one.
  Another issue that I would like to discuss is shared housing. I think that
building a shared house from scratch, as Sarito's group is doing, is an ex-
cellent idea. The reason is that if you try to convert an existing house,
you never quite get it right because the structural design of the house
limits what you can do. For me, the #1 issue with a shared house is lack of
privacy. In fact, I would prefer to call the idea I have in mind a "cooper-
ative house", as Sarito did. My idea is to build something halfway between
a shared house and cohousing, that is, for every unit to have a micro-kitchen.
In this context, a micro-kitchen would consist of a small fridge, a microwave
oven, and possibly a small sink and portable hot plate. (The house would still
have a shared kitchen in which most of the cooking would be done.) This leads 
to the issue of zoning. Most towns put heavy restrictions on the number of 
"dwelling units" one can have in a house, and the number of dwelling units is 
often determined by the number of kitchens. Most people who do house sharing 
make sure their house is seen as a single dwelling unit by not having any kit-
chen-type appliances in their private space at all. This is more or less the 
case with Sarito's group's project. My idea is to approach it from the opposite 
direction, that is, to find a place where the zoning allows every resident's 
private space to be considered a separate dwelling unit, and then let the 
scope of the micro-kitchens be determined by what is most practical and eco-
nomical for the residents.
  Do any members of the list know of a cooperative house in the U.S. that fits
this description, or a group that is thinking of building or setting up a place
like this?

Bob Morrison

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