Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Urban Affordable Cooperative Cohousing Communities.

[balaji (balaji]

Ed,

Would you be able to send me a copy of your limited equity agreement? 
Thanks very much!

Charles Nuckolls
Utah Valley Commons
www.utahvalleycommons.com

>
> Hi,
> Santa Rosa Creek Commons in Santa Rosa, CA is a limited-equity coop. The
> coop 27 units on two acres near downtown Santa Rosa.
>
> SRCC follows California state law regarding "limited equity," which is
> that,
> in any given year, the share can increase in value by no more than 10% of
> the cost of the original share price.
>
> Ed Flowers
> Yulupa Cohousing
> Santa Rosa, CA
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred H Olson" <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
> To: "-cohousing-L mailing list" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 6:41 AM
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Urban Affordable Cooperative Cohousing Communities.
>
>
>>
>> Joani Blank <joani [at] swansway.com>
>> is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
>> Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
>> after deleting remains of digest.
>> --------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------
>>
>> Joelyn, Jennifer and others,
>>
>> As far as I know, there are only three cohousing communities in the
>> nation that are structured as cooperatives. They are Winslow Cohousing
>> on Bainbridge Island in Washington, Eco-Village at Ithaca (don't know if
>> their two, going on three, adjacent communities are one coop or are two,
>> soon to be three, separate coops), and I can't remember which is the
>> third. Berkeley Cohousing struggled long and hard to to decide whether
>> to be a condo or a cooperative, and ended up getting the city to make a
>> new designation just for them, a limited equity condominium.
>>
>> I've heard that the main reason there are not more coop cohousing
>> communities is that it is extremely difficult if not impossible, to get
>> construction financing for a cohousing community that plans to be a
>> coop.
>>
>> As a person who converted her business into a worker cooperative (ask me
>> if you want to know more about what that is) after 15 years of sole
>> ownership, I'm much taken with cooperatives of all kinds (coop retail
>> stores ....aka consumer coops....and food coops, preschool coops,
>> student housing coops, agricultural coops),
>>
>> I'd dearly love to see more cohousing communities structured as coops in
>> large measure because then the whole group owns the community, while
>> each resident household owns a membership share (which costs a lot less
>> than it costs to purchase a cohousing condo or townhouse). This means
>> that it's possible for people with a wider variety of incomes to afford
>> to live there. And for me and some others, there are some significant
>> social differences as well. Many people who currently lives in cohousing
>> would not be attracted to cooperative ownership, for a myriad of
>> reasons, not the least of which is that in a coop, one's membership
>> share does not increase in value (no more more than a small cost of
>> living increase) no matter how long one lives there.
>>
>> Joani Blank
>>
>>
>>>
>>> "I'm a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, and I?m
>>> completing my degree in regional planning.  My master?s thesis research
>>> is on urban affordable cooperative cohousing developments.  I am
>>> looking
>>> for information about urban affordable cohousing and
>>> cooperative/cohousing hybrid developments possibly in the New England
>>> or
>>> New York metro areas."
>>>
>>> Jennifer - I'm very excited to see this. I'm also looking for existing
>>> models of affordable cooperative cohousing, and ideas on appropriate
>>> markets and business models for these. Monterey Cohousing Community in
>>> Minneapolis, where I live, is a great example. But of course not
>>> anywhere
>>> near New York or New England.
>>>
>>> I've just taken on the role of Interim Executive Director of the
>>> NorthCountry Cooperative Foundation here in Minneapolis, and have been
>>> thinking a lot about existing cooperative enterprise development models
>>> that could provide a much sounder foundation than what's currently
>>> available, for how small groups of committed individuals can become
>>> effective business partners with developers to create cohousing
>>> communities. There are lots of resources out there that we can make use
>>> of, that typical cohousing core groups probably don't know about or
>>> have
>>> easy access to.
>>>
>>> I'd love to partner with you to exchange ideas on the possible benefits
>>> of this model, and where this market niche idea might best be applied
>>> (cities where conditions are favorable, including critical numbers of
>>> people interested in cohousing). I'd also love to hear from anyone else
>>> who is interested.
>>>
>>> The web site for the National Association of Housing
>>> Cooperatives,http://www.coophousing.org/ is a great place to look if
>>> you
>>> can't find specific info on Cohousing cooperatives. They have toolkits
>>> for developing cooperative housing, but their focus is still on
>>> nonprofit
>>> developers being the initiators, not the future coop residents
>>> themselves. With the foreclosure crisis, there may be affordable
>>> properties available that would make great "retrofit" cohousing
>>> communities. It's something we plan to look at for here in the
>>> Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
>>>
>>> Joelyn Malone
>>> 9520926-8554
>>> Monterey Cohousing Community
>>> ... where I'm now wearing yet another hat in addition to running Malone
>>> Consulting and Cohousing Advocates!
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