Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: a strategy for affordability

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Sharon writes:

> One problem is that banks are getting very picky so you have to have
> an income that will support the larger mortgage before you can get
> the property to rent. In my experience, that you plan to rent isn't
> considered proof of income.

Yes.  For the example costs from the builder I quoted, the one
disability income covered the mortgage of both 700 sf units.

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> One of the issues that will come up or not come up but greatly
> influence the zoning decision is the fear that people who need
> small, inexpensive homes will not take care of them so there will be
> a blight in the middle of the neighborhood.

> In my neighborhood the city has started moving in group homes. Group
> homes are intended to deinstitutionalize people by integrating them
> back into communities. But they are placing these homes close
> together, three in one block, because it's easier for the
> staff. They not fulfilling their purpose, and the homes are not kept
> up like the neighboring homes homes. The lawns are threadbare from
> cars and trucks parking on them. No flowers are ever planted. The
> staff comes and goes without ever saying hello -- and this is a
> saying hello neighborhood.  When people complain they are accused of
> discrimination and NIMBY.

> A local zoning board seeing this has a vision in their heads of what
> low cost housing will bring so that vision will have to be
> addressed.  That's why many intentional communities end up in rural
> areas. No zoning restrictions.

All instances of "too many laws".  The cost of buying a lot, erecting
a building, and burying plumbing is not the problem.  The laws are.

Anyone who claims the legal red tape is not a big deal should be able
to come up with the names of 100 jurisdictions that currently allow
small homes cheaply, with sufficient due diligence to satisfy both a
homebuilder and a mortgage lender.  But if you believe that much legal
research will take years, if that many jurisdictions exist at all,
that's my point.

Brian