Cohousing-L Mailing List: subsidy for common house

[David Mandel (dlmandel]

An amendment to what I wrote you all a few minutes ago:

I was expounding on some grandiose suggestions based on my guess that
perhaps the Salt Lake group was considering making their common house a
community center of some sort.

Well, that might be a nice theoretical discussion, but I seem to have
guessed wrong. Marti replied to me, clarifying her group's dilemma:

>We are including 5 units in our 26 unit project as low-income units, and
>the city is helping with those.  However, the city will not cover the
>common house costs for those 5, leaving the other 21 units with a larger
>share of the common costs.  This makes for some fairly pricey
>condominiums.  We hope to find some additional funding to help offset
>that burden.Please see the response I just sent to coho-l following what
>Joani Blank >wrote in response to your query. It is a short version of
>what I wrote you yesterday, >plus some other stuff.

Hearing this, I would second the comment Joani Blank made, apparently being
more perceptive than I as to the nature of the problem. Nothing I wrote a
moment ago is untrue, but please add the following comments I just sent
Marti in reply:

"One way or another, the common house should be considered an integral part
of the project. The separate mortgage I wrote about in reply to Joani is
indeed possible but pretty rare. I would advise against doing it unless you
are serious about the common house/community center idea or something along
those lines.

"I don't fully understand what you mean when you say the city is willing to
help with the low-income units but not their common house costs. You might
want to point out to the city that while your common house may be different
in function from common facilities at a typical condo, it is in fact no
different in principle from the more standard condo's club house, meeting
room, swimming pool, perhaps even a lot more if it's a large development.
And the cost of building these things is almost always divided among the
purchasers of the individual units.

"Perhaps your city agency staff would like to contact ours. The possibility
of subsidizing low-income units but not their share of the common
facilities never even occurred to anyone here. Let me know if you want
names and numbers. I can give them advance warning."

Has any other group run into this problem -- subsidies offered for
low-income households' residences but not their share of the common house?
It really needs to be nipped in the bud.

David Mandel, Sacramento