Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordability?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Mar 15, 2007, at 10:40 AM, April wrote:

> Are there any cohousing communities that are really affordable?  Not 
> cohousing communities that have some sort of small "affordable" 
> subsidized housing, but genuinely created by those of us that are 
> middle income?

Definitely you need to define affordable and stick to it. It is very 
easy for the numbers to rise. And many people who want to live in 
cohousing or ecovillages are not willing to scrimp and can afford 
higher prices, so the prices just escalate with a couple of affordable 
units thrown in. Then those who can afford only the affordable units 
benefit -- or so the belief goes.

I think the opposite is true. It is (1) easier to build higher price 
units so that is what gets built and (2) people who have more monetary 
resources also tend to have more other resources -- education, 
contacts, etc. This puts a lot of pressure on the group to go bigger, 
more expensive, more designer, more square footage, more land, etc. 'We 
can get built faster if we do this."

So if you really want an affordable community, you need to stick to 
your goals and keep it simple. The truth is that housing is expensive. 
Big means money. Custom design means money. Green _may_ mean money -- 
this is improving.

You can go rural, but be careful of infrastructure costs -- how much 
does it cost to get electricity, etc., out there?

Plan a lifestyle, not just a house. And stick to it. When people come 
along to buy don't be flexible on things you know you have to do if you 
are to save affordability.

If you go to the country and everyone works in the heart of Albany, 
what do you do? Plan a van from the beginning that makes two or three 
trips a day to the city. That allows households to drop the second car 
and perhaps, the first. But get it built in early so the people you 
attract are attracted to that van and it won't be voted out the day 
after you move in.

The way this works in commuter communities (I used to live in New Paltz 
and commuted to New York City) is that someone buys a van and takes 
annual reservations (or six months, etc.). They pick up people at a 
diner on the edge of town and drop them off in the city, usually along 
a predetermined route with 3-4 stops. They pick up along the same 
route, again near a coffee shop works best. Everyone hangs out in the 
coffee shop. With annual reservations, there is no dickering about days 
people don't go in. In cohousing you have a central pick up already 
specified.

Home schooling is great but who does it? Plan this from the first, even 
start before you move in if it is a value to you. You want to attract 
people to your community who are also attracted to your brand of home 
schooling.

In the city, land prices are very expensive, so think retrofit. There 
are programs available in the city for rehabbing buildings. If you 
limit residents to those below certain incomes, you may be eligible for 
other funding but will have no control over who moves in. Will it still 
be cohousing in 2 years? In a building in the theater district, a real 
dump that had been rent controlled for years and years, the residents 
all bought their own units using federal funds. It took a lot of 
negotiating and they all lived there already but it worked. Now worth a 
fortune, I'm sure.

You also have RPI and SUNY Albany as a resource. Who can you find there 
who is interested in proving that good housing can be affordable? Set a 
house price and challenge them to meet it. You could probably get a 
grant to set up such a contest!

The bottom line is that you have to stick to it -- and be specific. 
Affordable means this much money for this many square feet.

Sharon
---
Sharon Villines
Building Community: A Guide to Creating New Neighborhoods
http://www.buildingcommunity.info