Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Really inexpensive (ha!) cohousing??

[sga1 (sga1]

We just had our first informational meeting this afternoon about our two
co-housing projects up here in Arcata and Eureka, and here are some of the
ideas we presented to the group about affordable housing:

-Building a two story house with only the first floor finished and the
second floor roughed out for post-purchase work by a handy homeowner or
pro at a later date when money is available. As long as there is a
bathroom, kitchen and sleeping area a buyer can get the Certificate of
Occupancy required to purchase a house, but the hard stuff (plumbing,
electricity, framing) of construction has been done, while the easier
stuff (drywall, painting, moulding) is left to the homeowner.

-Getting limited-equity financing from the county/city. Making a house
"limited equity" meets the goal of maintaining affordable housing in a
community while providing funds/financing to a homeowner that make the
house more affordable.

-Organizing the community to deconstruct a local defunct barn or house to
salvage the building materials. This was done for Marsh Commons, and each
house and the Common House has salvaged old growth redwood trim from a
local barn.

Hope that spurs some thinking. :)

Warmly,
Sean Armstrong
Co-housing Project Manager


>
> MEW
> N Street Cohousing is in the lowest cost neighborhood in town.
> Average houses are 1100 square feet and are poorly made.  Prices have
> gone up here as they have just about everywhere in CA but still are
> the lowest priced in town. I believe On Going Concerns, another
> retrofit community in OR is also in a low income section of town.
> Retrofit cohousing in low income neighborhoods is an alternative.
> Kevin
>
>
>>So, after our wonderful most recent group amicably decided
>>affordable land was just too hard to come by (alas) - my husband
>>and I started joking about "Double Wide Cohousing - the affordable
>>alternative!" and then I got thinking - is there any precedence for
>>sacrificing aesthetics somewhat but using really inexpensive
>>building techniques?  Mobile home cohousing?  I don't know... I'm
>>not really sure if pre-fab houses are cheaper (though my sense
>>from the little research I've done is that they can be really cheap in
>>the "fall apart" sense, modestly priced and decent, or actually of
>>pretty high quality and nice but expensive).
>>
>>Just curious! :-)
>>
>>Mary Ellen (aka "mew" - who is going to live in cohousing someday
>>darnit!) ;-)
>>MaryEllen Wessels / Hopeful Romantics
>>mew AT  mewsic DOT com
>>http://www.mewsic.com
>>(802) 985-3165
>>
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