Re: Re: the microflat as a module in affordable inner urban design
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 11:21:01 -0600 (MDT)
on 7/14/2002 12:30 PM, Jock Coats at jock.coats [at] oxfordlibdems.org.uk wrote:

> they are still perpetuating a myth that ownership is the only
> really desirable form of tenure and pandering to that.  It would be my
> contention that if the same principles were applied to building
> not-for-profit housing for community ownership renting would not be
> 'dead money'

Renting in a situation where your rents do not threaten to throw you out of
your home is a tremendously freeing state. But when I lived in Manhattan,
the rent increases are so great that I lived in fear that I would lose my
home with the next lease, and then lose my neighborhood and then lose my
town. 

But when I was renting in Florida, it was lovely. I had no worries about
repairs inside or outside my apartment and all the outside maintenance was
taken care of much better than  I would have been able to keep up with it.
(In Florida anything green grows an inch every hour.)

Now I own my unit and even though I have no ideas of ever paying off my
mortgage, I have stable monthly payments that are still about $400 lower
than if I were renting. And I have the privilege of changing appliances,
etc., without getting permission or losing them when I can no longer afford
the rent.

Perhaps the issue is the competitive market. If I could be assured that I
would not lose my apartment and my rents would not go up, I would rent. But
in Manhattan with rent controls, this has not worked for anyone. Not the
city owned buildings or the privately owned buildings. Or in some sense for
the renters who are trapped in the system. They can never leave their
apartments.

Sharon
-- 
In Washington DC where all roads lead to Casablanca


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