Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: The affordable cohousing myth vs development reality

[Carol Burrell (Logomanc]

I won't call Rob's post the "elitist" approach (or however it was worded
in the letter that started off the current discussion), but I'll bet his
clear, well-reasoned statements might set someone off on that train of
thought who was already steering that way. Or even someone just new to the
topic.

The first cohousing communities I looked into were more expensive than the
surrounding communities -- to an extreme when the communities included old
cheap Victorian houses as well as expensive mansions. (I've lived in some
of those old Victorians, but never through a winter!) The existence of the
common house was paltry comfort when dealing with my advanced case of
sticker shock.

The eco-builders I researched once upon a time were enthusiastically
making their sorts of houses happen, but in most cases not joined with a
cohousing effort, and if so not on the scale of 30-60 units (I'm
remembering something at about 10 units, I think...). Building these
houses (cob, straw, rammed earth, domes, yurts, earth-sheltered hobbity
holes, etc.) took/takes hard work and patience and determination, of
course. As I recall, part of their educational efforts included strategies
for getting permits, differing by locale. It's been a while, though, and
my memory is fuzzy.

"pretty much make it impossible to accomplish" still means "possible to
accomplish," you see....

I was supposed to be getting back to work. But I suspect I'll be sneaking
in some web-research into cob/straw/etc. cohousing projects.

Carol.

Rob Sandelin said:
> When you see $350,000 cohousing units, look around the non-cohousing
> neighborhood at the competing real estate. Almost always, that competition
> is a similar price range.
>
> If eco-developments were cheap and easy, there would be thousands of them.

[some snipped]

> These two things, Bank financing and Legally
> permitted ensure that it is impossible to create real ecologically
> sustaining housing. In order to do serious ecologically sustainable
> building, you have to do private financing and either duck under or spend
> enormous time and money and effort to get legally permitted. Way out in
> the
> country you can do this, in developing areas, you find the scrutiny of the
> building inspector.
>
> Why are there not dozens of straw bale communities? Because only a tiny
> few
> financial places will fund them.
>
> So building 30 homes, which is sort of the standard scale of cohousing,
> anywhere, always costs millions of dollars, which then translates into
> market rate housing costs. If it is way over market rate, the banks
> typically balk at giving loans. Typically all the "savings" by being a not
> for profit development go into the commonhouse. Affordability comes not so
> much in building, as in mortgage subsidies.
>
> So, large scale (30 units or more) low cost eco-building has not yet been
> managed in many places. I would also suspect that if such housing was
> built,(supported by the banking industry) assuming it was desirable,
> resale
> profit making would bring the cost up to local market rates within a
> decade
> or so.
>
> So in my estimation the bottom line is, Cohousing, built from scratch
> which
> has private ownership of homes that are bank mortgaged will only have
> limited success in creating much low cost housing. The current estimate is
> 10% of cohousing could be called affordable. Other methods such as
> mortgage
> support, housing renovation, rentals, and such will be the means for folks
> on the lower end of the home ownership economic scale to find entry into
> cohousing. Thus cohousing is going to hold the upper economic nitch of the
> IC world. I would love to see a 30-60 home eco-development in Washington
> created with alternative technologies, strong community values, and a low
> cost. This is a vision of many people I have met over the years. But the
> realities of doing so pretty much make it impossible to accomplish.
>
> Rob Sandelin
> Sharingwood Cohousing, Snohomish Co, WA
> Where renters are welcome, and the cobb house is habitable but not yet
> permitable.


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