Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Very quick question

[Dirk Herr-Hoyman (hoymand]

For Arboretum Cohousing it's

Homes:  40
Home living area:       46,000 sf
Common House area:      6000 sf

One of the metrics I look at from the development perspective is
the ratio of living area to common house area.
For Arbco, it's 13%
Looking down this list, I see most in the 10-15% range, though
a few are down to 8% and some up to 40%.
I also look at average living area.
For Arbco it's 1150
Looking down the list, I see most in the 950-1200 range.

One of the big picture questions I have is whether cohousing
common space results in smaller overall housing (and costs).
Does a common house mean folks are willing to live with smaller
spaces, including kitchens and # of baths (which are the high cost
spaces).  Or do we just rearrange how the space (and money) is
allocated compared to a more traditional housing arrangement.

--Dirk

On Aug 9, 2008, at 9:37 AM, Dave and Diane wrote:

> 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.
>
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--
Dirk Herr-Hoyman
Arboretum Cohousing in Madison, WI
http://arboretumcohousing.org