Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: BIG Co-housing. Who Loves It? Who Hates It?

[Lion Kuntz (lionkuntz]

--- Patti Lautner wrote:

> I would consider this in an urban environment - San Fran is perfect
> (I lived there for 8 years from 1990 - 1998).

San Francisco is a difficult city to plan for. The blocks are many
varying sizes built on seven hills of assorted slopes. I went back and
looked up "Opera Plaza" -- it turns out my memory after 10 years was
wrong. I can still see the main frontage building with ground floor and
mezzanine as commercial, with four stories of condos on top of that,
but I completely forgot the three 11-story towers built on three sides
of the block. That complex is 450 units, far greater than I was
remembering. The Van Ness frontage mostly complies with the building
street wall limits imposed by the master plan. It is deliberately kept
at a level generally similar to the neighborhood standard.

The location price is also prohibitive. one current listing for a 1 br.
unit is $425,000.
http://www.pacunion.com/Homes/Detail.cfm?PropertyID=140297766&StartRow=1

http://www.homesandland.com/Listing.cfm?RefererId=Oodle&ListingId=8972821&MagId=2148
Studio $340,000

Apparantly there is a $435 home-owners fee for janitorial, landscaping,
security and maintenance as well, with no income property benefits
accruing to the homeowners. It almost is an object lesson in what's the
wrong way to combine residential and commercial to maximize public
good.

I will have to look for some other public example that is closer to the
basic details I want to use as an reference.



> In a message dated 3/26/2006 12:06:54 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
> lionkuntz [at] yahoo.com writes:

> > The key points: 
> > *** BIG (hectare, city block)
> > *** Mixed-Use, commercial space on ground floor
> > *** 100 families.


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com