Cohousing-L Mailing List: Church sponsored cohousing

[Joani Blank (joani]

Chris Wulff wrote:

> I am wondering if there are models where churches have been involved in
> sponsoring a cohousing project, and becoming one of the common
> buildings. We are also curious about attempts to integrate low-income
> housing units in the project.

There is a small cohousing community 9 units in Oakland, California, that 
was built by 9 households all of whom belonged to a local Methodist 
Church.  Now there are one or two households living there who are not 
associated with that church.  As you noted in your email, sometimes a core 
group starts out with several families from the same church, but with the 
intention of including anyone who wants to living in a cohousing community 
in that area.

Most groups actively seek diversity including religious diversity (and 
diversity of church affiliation or the unchurched), but even if they did 
not actively seek that, getting a cohousing community going requires 
finding a whole bunch of households who: want to live in cohousing; want to 
live where the core group finds a site; are in a position to buy a 
dwelling; etc. And you gotta find a bunch of folks who fit those criteria 
all at more or less the same time.

Even if there were enough resources for a community to be built to be lived 
in by all members and friends of the same church and with a church as one 
of the common buildings, I can see some pretty serious problems:

1. Presumably, a church wants to draw people from outside the  cohousing 
community to participate in worship and other church community activities, 
making at least that building a public facility inside a residential 
complex. In the US, zoning wouldn't be likely to allow it.  (I note you are 
in Canada where the rules may well be different.)

2.  In the US, church property is tax exempt from property taxes. And the 
local planning authorities are not likely to  look fondly on a piece of 
property (land) going from taxable to non-taxable. That is why so many 
churches who need, for example a larger (or smaller) facility that than 
have at the present time, have to find a church that is no longer in use to 
buy, or build another building on the site they already own.

3.  Finally, if, after the community was occupied, households left the 
community for any reason, there might not be other church members chomping 
at the bit to buy in, SO even if the group were welcoming to me, a person 
not associated with the church as a potential resident,  for example, I'd 
be unhappy about supporting the common church building as it's not my 
church.. I might even have active disagreements with the church's creed or 
practices, and that could make life  pretty uncomfortable both for me and 
my neighbors.

About making some of your units affordable.  I'm guessing that any advice 
and counsel you get from the US about this will be pretty useless to you 
there in Canada,  as I believe that your country and ours are quite far 
apart in our commitment to any kind of support of any kind for low-income 
families.

I don't know any specifics about government supports for housing (or 
anything else that people need, for that matter) in Canada, but I have a 
very strong suspicion that there's proportionally a good deal more of such 
support and more programs there than here.  (Will some American who knows, 
or some Canadian pelsase straighten me out about this, if I'm way off base.

Best of luck to you,

Joani Blank
Swan's Market Cohousing, Oakland, California

Joani Blank
510-834-7399
Cell: 510-387-1315
joani [at] swansway.com