Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Any family-based 55+ cohousing in existence?

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Fran Lunney <franlunney [at] gmail.com>
is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
after deleting quoted digest.
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The Fair Housing law must be taken into account in order to create a
55+ project.  There is an exemption in the fair housing law for senior
projects.  Invoking that involves excluding households that didn't
include someone over the cutoff age of 55.

Here is an excerpt from an article entitled "The Fair Housing Act amendments
and age restrictive covenants in condominiums and cooperatives" found in the
St. John's Law Review
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3735
Winter 1999
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3735/is_199901/
written by Napolitano, Nicole
http://findarticles.com/p/search/?qa=Napolitano,%20Nicole

Congress did not believe that all housing that excludes children
constitutes a discriminatory practice. Thus, appreciating the
preference of many senior citizens to live in retirement communities
without children, the FHAA exempted from its scope "housing for older
persons." This exemption protected the rights of seniors to choose to
live in communities with people their own age.

Under the legislation, a housing unit could qualify for this exemption
in one of three ways. First, the unit could qualify if it was a state
or federally-funded housing project that was "specifically designed
and operated to assist elderly persons." The second qualification
could be satisfied by those housing communities intended for persons
at least sixty-two years of age and occupied solely by them. Third, a
community could qualify if it was "intended and operated for occupancy
by at least one person fifty-five years of age or older per unit."

For a housing facility to qualify for exemption under the third
method, it was required to meet three additional criteria. First, such
housing had to offer "significant facilities and services specifically
designed to meet the physical or social needs of older persons."
Second, at least eighty percent of the units had to be occupied by
someone who was a minimum of fifty-five years of age. Third, the
manager or owner of the housing complex was required to publish and
adhere to policies and procedures demonstrative of an intent to
provide housing for persons of at least fifty-five years of age.

Fran Lunney

franlunney [at] gmail.com
C:  571-205-1471