Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: The "lot" development model

[Martin Tracy (mtracy]

Hi Pablo!  Thanks for the explanation on why the "lot" development model fails 
if lot prices are too high.

There's a couple of things I still don't understand about this.  Maybe you can 
explain them for me.


>The "lot" model of building cohousing only works if lots are cheap enough 
>for the people building the cheapest house. This may sound like a 
>requirement for *any* cohousing, but it is not. New View's land is much too 
>expensive for the people building the cheapest houses. We rely on the 
>developer's ability (we are the developer, in this case) to sell larger, 
>more expensive units at a smaller land cost/final cost ratio than the 
>smaller, less expensive units. If we sold land to the members as lots, the 
>people building larger units would get a bargain while the poeple building 
>smaller units would get shafted.

>Real-life example (numbers are very rough, just to make the point):

>Our common costs and land work out to about $100,000 per house. If we sold 
>plots at $100,000 apiece, then someone building a a $80,000 2-bedroom 
>structure would pay $180,000 total for their house and land. This is 
>reasonable or a bit high. However, someone building a house 50% bigger that 
>costs $120,000 to build would pay $220,000 for their house - quite a bargain 
>for such a large house. Someone else building a small $60,000 1-2 bedroom 
>house would pay $160,000 for their house - way above market rate for such a 
>small house.

Ok, so it seems to me you are saying that the number of higher priced houses 
must be equal to the number of lower priced houses.  I can understand this.  
But 
what about the average sized houses?  They are economically "neutral", are they 
not?  Couldn't they be lots instead of houses?

What if you have thirty households.  Ten build $180,000 houses + lots, ten 
build 
$220,000 houses + lots.  The remaining ten lots could be sold either as 
$100,000 
lots or as $200,000 houses, right?  Am I missing something?

Regards to Nancy!


-- 
Martin Tracy, Los Angeles
mtracy [at] ix.netcom.com