Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: The economic realities of Cohousing development

[Patty M Gourley (pattymara]

On Fri, 3 Nov 2000 00:32:29 -0600 "Rob Sandelin" <floriferous [at] msn.com>
writes:
>Back to our affordable cohousing project. They have no resources, that
is why  they are making an affordable housing project. They approach a
local affordable housing  group. Oops. Cohousing requires lots of time
commitments and community building work. Hmmmm. This is undesirable  from
the non-profits point of view, too much is required.  No thanks, we'll
pass on this project, since we already have the next  3  years worth of
block grants targeted.
> 

At Tierra Nueva, on the central CA coast, we were offered our 4.5 acres
of land from a private individual who requested (among several other
items) that we provide housing for low-income seniors.  Since we didn't
have any money to buy land in the California real estate market, our core
group spent over 5 years of blood, sweat and tears working with the local
Housing Authority and private low-income housing providers.  And what Rob
said above was true for us.  After 3 years of dancing around with the
Housing Authority they dropped us like a hot potato.  The other entity,
People's Self Help Housing, graciously kept us dangling for only 3 or 4
months.   We spent countless hours and thousands of dollars on legal fees
to help create a contract with the Housing Authority only to have them
dump us.  We continued to work feverishly to satisfy our landowner's
wishes by hiring consultants in senior housing, searching for a local
developer who would take us on and steeping ourselves in the intricacies
of community block grant requirements.  

Finally we realized we had done everything in our power and had come up
with zip.  So we approached the landowner and said, "Let us build
cohousing here. (Instead of the Low Income Senior Housing-Cohousing
hybrid she had required)  We'll create an inter generational community
that will be good for seniors, and we're doing everything we can already
to make it affordable for all of us." 

After a nervous week of waiting.  She said yes.  And we proceeded.  

>And so, to do cohousing successfully, based on what I know of the built
groups in 
> America takes a couple things. 1. Money and 2. People with a high level
of  drive to
> succeed under difficult circumstances.

We had the high level of drive.  We didn't have money, so we borrowed
$65,000 to the initial development work.  It was high risk, and we
struggled for years not knowing if the core group would have to pony up
our share of the debt.  

>From my experiences, Currently, cohousers are people  that are almost
uniformly middle class, college educated, who have good paying jobs.

Right again, Rob.  That's a fairly good profile of our 27 households. 
Except that over half of us are seniors, retired, living on fixed
incomes.  But they all had the money to buy, because they had owned
houses before.  

> Those that succeeded had: Money enough to cover the initial project
costs,
> or a  compelling enough project that a developer partnered with 
> them. But if you talk with folks that partnered with developers, guess
what? They
> required a vast majority of the units be pre-sold to approved
mortgagable
> buyers.

Righto.  We borrowed that initial money at high personal risk, and
eventually Wonderland agreed to save our ass and co-develop with us.  And
we did have to pre-sell most of our units.

> And while there is housing money around, it has some strings attached
which
> make it difficult  to access for cohousing projects. Not impossible,
but pretty hard. >Vashon cohousing did it.

We didn't have money, but we did have the "gift" of land.  And it had
plenty of strings attached.    But we jumped through the hoops over and
over.  Sometimes I look back and just shake my head in wonderment.  The
new members who bought houses toward the end of that long perilous road
are sick to death of hearing about our early struggles.  And so am I. 
But something motivated us to keep on risking, and that something was a
collective vision that in many ways has come to reality.  And in some
ways, has not.    We are all dealing with some disappointments.  

That's where we are now. On the verge of rewriting our vision statement
to more clearly reflect who we are now.   I wonder how long it will take
us?   

I am so inspired by the Pinakarri vision statement:  "Through
Pinakarri-deep listening-we learn to love more completely. "   I hope we
have the courage to recreate our vision statement in that same tone.  To
have the courage to redirect the emphasis from the physical
houses/neighborhood to the interpersonal relationships that are at the
core of community life.  

coheartedly,
Patty Mara Gourley
Tierra Nueva, Central CA Coast












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