Cohousing-L Mailing List: More affordable housing ideas

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

There are several models of cohousing. The most common, and in my opinion,
most expensive, is the capital project model, where the whole development is
designed and built as one large capital project. Other models, which again
in my opinion, are probably cheaper, are the lot, and retrofit models.  I
live at Sharingwood which is a lot model of cohousing. In this model, the
group designs the site around building lots and then allows individuals to
buy lots and design and develop their own homes. This model allows for
owner-builders, and a wide variety of housing types. You can have yurts,
shacks, handmade homes, etc.

In my community there  is a 120 square foot home (like a small shed)made of
recycled lumber which cost nothing to build but time, and a custom timber
framed 4,000 sq. foot home which cost over half a million dollars. Each
works wonderfully for its occupants. Another small natural materials home is
being designed which has a target cost of $30,000.

You can't do stuff like this in capital project models, the banks decide
what you can build, and you have to all conform to the layout. In a lot
model, as long as your legal stuff is in order, you can build whatever you
want. Obviously small hand built homes will not get bank mortgages, but the
point of those homes is to NOT have a mortgage in the first place. You can
of course get mortgages for homes that qualify, so you have the best of both
worlds.

However the downside, from my experience, is that often you can end up with
large, overly pretentious homes which people buy for lots of money, then
later want to sell for a profit and this causes the prices of homes to
exceed their value, and then such homes don't sell.

Obviously developing land into lots uses more land than attached wall
housing does, although I suppose you could also create duplex lots or other
creative ways to share walls or structures.

So If you decide to do this model, I would encourage you to put into place
architectural review standards, where the community has to approve plans,
and setup guideline as to maximum house size and costs, among other things.
This gives you some control over having too many oversized homes.

The other downside is the home construction can go on for a long time. We
are building our 24th home out of 29 lots and the first home went in in
1988.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood
www.sharingwood.org
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