Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Very quick question

[Dave and Diane (daveanddee]

Hi Tom,
This is from a study I did in 2003. Laura Fitch also has some studies.
--Diane Simpson
  JP Cohousing, Boston MA

Community      Common House*     Total units     Total unit sq.'      
Avg unit sq.'       		
Jamaica Plain     4800            30               27314               
910
Pathways          6741            24               33617               
1400
Pioneer Vally     9568            32               38803               
1213
Pleasant Hill     3969            32               39693              1240
Bellingham        3936            33               36310               
1100
Coati             3006            30               38151               
1272
Island            2600            16               22470               
1404
Culver Way†       5374            48               46449?              
968?
Rosewind§    2800            21               37400              1720
New View**        8000            24               43097               
1796
Champlain V.      3800            24               27700               
1154
Wasatch           6500            26               38100               
1465
Cambridge         7500            41               51750               
1262
Austin            4000            30               30400               
1013


* Some communities consider unfinished basement space part of the  
common house.
† This community has a “range” for all unit sizes so the data is not  
that useful.
§ Lot-development model. 21 houses built out of 24 lots available.  
Given data for 20 units.
**Only 4000 is finished space.

Raines Cohen: "The average CH is 154 square feet per unit."

Laura Fitch has two spread sheets that she made from data concerning  
unit and common house size.
They are available for download here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ 
cohousing-L/files/

= = = = = = = = = =
On Aug 8, 2008, at 11:06 PM, Tom Hammer of Concord Ecovillage in  
Chester County, PA wrote:

> Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 23:06:44 -0400
> From: Tom Hammer <thammer302 [at] yahoo.com>
> Subject: [C-L]_ Very quick question
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
>
> Hi All,
>
> We have a very quick question with an answer needed urgently (by
> Sunday a.m.):
>
> we have a developer who is suggesting a 2500 sq ft common house for 34
> families.
>
> This seems small to me, and we could really use your quick estimate of
> the sq ft of your common house and how many households it serves.  We
> could then come up with  sq ft/household and see if our developer's
> figures make sense.