Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Group Size

[Kay Argyle (argyle]

> I'm curious how this relates in people-numbers to other groups of 15 or 25
> households. Since we have so many single adults it is hard to compare
> numbers.  >   > Sharon

Wasatch Commons has twenty-five households (about seventy bedrooms),
comprising thirty-three adults and twenty children.

For many purposes I suspect optimal group size has more to do with number
and age of members than with the usual calculation by number of units.  The
number of units gives you a minimum number of incomes that the cost of
common facilities must be divided among, but even there household
composition makes a difference:  number of income-earning adults (and of
course income level) vs. number of dependents determines what the household
can afford.

Of course, number of units is under the cohousing group's control in the
planning stages, while household composition can only be slightly affected
by number of bedrooms offered and recruiting outreach.  Cohousing's appeal
to upper-income people, especially singles, keeps the ratio of square
footage to members high -- they can afford bigger houses and have fewer
kids.

(I think our group could have used more single-bedroom units -- given our
household compositions, theoretically we could use eleven! -- and wish the
two we have weren't on a second floor and unsuitable for an elder with
reduced mobility.)

Kay Argyle
argyle [at] mines.utah.edu
Wasatch Commons
Salt Lake City

> figuring out how to store 40 bicycles with a bike room that holds 9.

At least you've got a bike room ;)!  Our "car repair bay" got co-opted for
"temporary, just this winter" bike storage -- two years ago.  (To cram more
in, they're hung from their front tires on hooks.)


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