Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Households with Children

[Kay Argyle (argyle]

> There is no relationship between the number of children and the size of
> the units in our community. Or even the number bedrooms and the
> number of adults.

Ditto for Wasatch Commons.  People purchase the size they can afford, not
the size they need -- except for the minority, usually older singles, who
actively want a small place.  You'll want to visit the archives, if you
haven't already, because the subject of unit vs. household size was
discussed just a few months ago.

In the months just before move-in, six households with children joined; five
of these were single parents, two of them low-income.  Cohousing is (I'm
told) wonderful for raising kids, but it can be a struggle for parents,
especially singles, to find the time cohousing requires in return.

Whatever your household mix at move-in, it will change.  In November it will
be three years since Wasatch Commons' first move-in.  Six of our initial
households are gone, with a seventh going soon; a couple of units have
changed hands several times.  We've had one birth, three teens leave home,
one marriage (three during planning), one divorce; no deaths, thankfully.

Following recent changes, our households consist of
* seven singles,
* six single parents,
* four couples (including empty-nesters),
* a pair of room-mates,
* one multi-generation household (mom, adult daughters, granddaughter), and
* six nuclear "families",

adding up to
* thirteen households with children, although only three have more than one;
* 33 adults and about 15 children.

occupying
* two 1BR, about eleven 2BR, six or seven each 3BR and 4BR,
* totalling 25 units.

We have different styles of two-bedroom units.  Two are a couple of hundred
feet smaller than the others.  That made enough of a price difference to
help one family buy in.  Having seen that, I would recommend having a few
cheaper three-bedrooms also.

I think we could have used more one-bedroom units and certainly more units
without stairs.  Cohousing ought to be ideal to grow old in -- a couple of
meals a week, neighbors who will shovel the walk, ask if they can get
anything at the store, and be concerned if it's afternoon and the morning
paper is still outside.  However, not counting the income-qualified units,
we only have three units without internal stairs, all 2BR.

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



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