Cohousing-L Mailing List: re: safe-harbor rule applied to land trusts

[Stephanie Fassnacht (fassnach]

Rob, I like your idea of community's being the important thing in
cohousing, not the ownership/non-ownership issue.  You suggest that
MACLT could own the land and that cohousing could be built as rental
units, or of some mix of rental units on MACLT land, and some as
market-rate, ownership units on private land.

As I understand it, the mixed ownership model isn't possible under a
PUD.  Mixed ownership would require that the land be platted as
individual lots which in turn  would require streets, curbs, etc.  As a PUD,
there is no such requirement.

As far as rental units, that is one thing the neighborhood has been
adamantly against from the start, and I doubt if they are going to
give on this issue.  The reason is that the only reason they've agreed
to have any buildings on the property at all is so that it will be
financially feasible to maintain the community gardens (on the "other"
10 acres of the property) which have existed there for over a decade.
The property is in an area with many rental units which have been the
source of trouble to the neighborhood in the recent past.

Stephanie Fassnacht
Porchlight Cohousing
Madison WI
fassnach [at] ssc.wisc.edu