Cohousing-L Mailing List: Southern California Discovers Cohousing

[T LOFFT2 (tlofft2]

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/wpublisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=48&topicId=5777&docId=l:19023419&start=8

If this works as a I-net link, here's another news story about cohousing as 
another editor discovers America's best kept secret in Moreno Valley, near 
Riverside, the first cohousing community in Southern California, with 8 of 
the 20 units reserved for low income households, and assisted by Federal 
funds and the City's Urban Renewal Agency.

If the link doesn't work, here's the text:

Moreno Valley looks at co-housing:
IDEA: The neighborhood concept would cluster 20 homes and have their 
residents interact daily.

Copyright 2003 The Press Enterprise Co.
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE (RIVERSIDE, CA.)
February 28, 2003, Friday

MORENO VALLEY
City planners looking to sidestep suburban sprawl are considering
a new approach for creating old-fashioned neighborhoods.

The idea is to build a ready-made community of 20 homes to be
planned and occupied by families and singles, old and young,
well-off and low-income residents -- all in one of the oldest parts
of the city.

It's called co-housing, and though the Danish housing concept has
been around for 30 years -- a blink of the eye in architectural
terms -- a Moreno Valley co-housing community would be one of only
about 50 in the United States, and the first in Southern California.

"In the simplest sense, it's an intentional neighborhood," said
Mitch Slagerman, Moreno Valley's redevelopment manager. Slagerman
is the driving force behind a nearly $ 1 million plan to build a
co-housing development on city-owned land along Atwood Avenue in
the city's Sunnymead area.

"In co-housing, the residents of a neighborhood know each other
before the first brick is laid, and every household participates in
the decision-making process."

Slagerman's plan is to put together prospective residents of a
co-housing development to be built on 1.4 acres owned by the city's
redevelopment agency near Atwood Avenue and Heacock Street.
Assuming the interest is there, the future homeowners would work
with a consultant and later a developer hired by the city to map
out and build the community they want to live in.

The city's total investment in the project would be about
$ 850,000; federal funds and the land's $ 360,000 value would account
for most of it.

"We think it's a great concept," Slagerman said. "It's an
innovative approach to an old-fashioned neighborhood."

Co-housing developments usually feature a "common house" with
shared cooking, dining and recreation areas, plus a courtyard or
backyard area. Maintenance and other costs are paid through
homeowner fees, and decisions are shared by the neighborhood, with
each household represented on a community council. Residents share
meals, rotating cooking duties among themselves.

"You just show up, wash your plate when you're done, and it's
over," said Kevin Wolf, 46, who lives in a co-housing community in
Davis. Moreno Valley officials recently visited co-housing sites
there and in Sacramento to get a feel for how they operate.

Proponents say co-housing cuts down on urban sprawl because, as
with the Moreno Valley proposal, it's usually built within existing
city limits.

Because residents share chores and bills, co-housing is also
cheaper and more environmentally friendly, said Neshama Abraham
Paiss of the Cohousing Network, a Boulder, Colo.-based non-profit
that's been advising Moreno Valley officials on getting their plan
off the ground.

"The typical design of the neighborhood is to cluster the homes
so they have the smallest footprint possible, to allow residents
the most open space available," Paiss said.

The homes would cost about $ 138,000 each, compared with the
$ 208,000 average price of a single-family home in Moreno Valley,
Slagerman said. Eight of the 20 units would be reserved for
low-income residents, paid for partly with federal funds that the
city must use anyway

The project would enable the city to reinvest in one of its older
neighborhoods, promote home ownership and meet the city's
low-income-housing obligations, Slagerman said.

Before would-be homeowners are sold on the concept, though,
Slagerman has to convince a skeptical City Council that co-housing
is a good idea.

"I guess the first thing I though was 'commune' or 'kibbutz,' "
Councilman Dick Stewart said after being briefed on the proposal
this week.

Council members said they want assurances that a co-housing
development wouldn't turn into a collection of rental properties
and that potential disputes among residents wouldn't sink the whole
community idea.

Slagerman said he plans to present a proposal to the City
Council by April. If approved, a co-housing community could be
built in about three years, he said.






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