Cohousing-L Mailing List: Zoning and low cost housing

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

I think low cost housing might be impeded by lack of investment capital
interest. There is little profit to be made and so the incentive by those
who fund the building of housing is low.  Recently in a small town not far
from where I live an old farm was subdivided into lots to create a
manufactured housing development, focusing on 2 bedroom, small inexpensive
units. It went under because the bankers did not see it as a good investment
and there were no other investors interested since the return on the
investment would be lower than typical I suppose. The total cost of the
project, which would have created 35 low cost homes was less than 2 million
dollars but nobody in government nor private industry went for it.  The
subdivided land got sold and now there is a proposal to build 25 high end
houses on it, and apparently this has lots of investment interest.

So capitalism seems to drive larger profit making projects and at least my
areas local government seems to have little support for the public interest
sector which would benefit from low cost housing. 

Rob  Sandelin
Snohomish County, WA 

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Bartholomew [mailto:bb [at] stat.ufl.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 10:51 AM
To: Cohousing-L
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ FAQs for New Members


Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> writes:

> Not to be classist but realistic, the people how can pull off 
> cohousing are those with more education and more available funds. It 
> is hard to confront city hall and zoning boards and banks. This takes 
> a certain amount of experience and self-confidence and free time that 
> many low-income people do not have.

Does that mean you agree with my assertion that zoning is the primary
impediment to low-cost housing?

                                                        Brian
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