Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Zoning patterns

[John Beutler (jabeutler]

Hopefully you have not signed a contract with the landowner. If you do, 
it should be conditional on obtaining the zoning you need. I have no 
idea what the zoning ordinance looks like, but you have to work within 
it or propose a new category. Most zoning has categories for offsetting 
clustered housing with open space, but you need a density of 2/acre. 
That's not a huge increase, but it is meaningful for both the zoning 
folks and your project.Changing the ordinance itself is a substantial 
challenge unless you have the powers that be on your side. Have you 
considered doing a whole community water & sewer system rather than well 
& septic? Especially in an arid area like New Mexico, it might be 
advantageous.

Liberty Village, my community, is in a rural unincorporated area, and we 
ended up being a planned unit development (PUD) instead of using the 
cohousing text amendment to the zoning ordinance that we were able to 
have passed. We are 38 units on 24 acres, though only 18 units are built 
so far. We have county water & sewer, and having sewer taps revoked was 
a substantial barrier to proceeding from 2004-2008. Once that was 
solved, then the real estate crisis happened....

Cheers

JAB


On 12/14/2013 7:59 PM, Joyce Thompson wrote:
> Cohousing colleagues, we need help!
>
> We are Placitas Sage, a developing senior cohousing community in Placitas,
> New Mexico.  Placitas is a rural/suburban unincorporated area 10 miles
> north of Albuquerque and about 40 miles south of Santa Fe.  We have found a
> wonderful 11.8 acre site in the foothills of the Sandia mountains and
> planned to build 20 800-1200 sq.ft. units, but we have just learned the
> county zoning board is treating us like a *subdivision* and limiting us to
> only 11 housing units -- restricted to 1 house per acre, like most of the
> rest of the area.  That number is too small, both for community and for
> financial purposes, for our community.
>
> Have any of you persuaded a zoning board in a *rural* area to change the
> zoning for cohousing from a subdivision, allowing more dense clusters of
> housing units (condos/casitas) along with a common house and shared
> land/garden, etc.?
>
> Unlike urban areas, our water will come from wells, and septic systems will
> handle sewage.   This seems to be an unusual model for cohousing.  Have any
> of you created cohousing in a rural area with these kinds of systems?
>
> We have a good group of committed people, but we face many challenges,
> especially zoning and water supply issues, before we can proceed.  Any
> suggestions you can offer will be most appreciated
>
> Peace, Joyce Thompson
> Placitas Sage Cohousing
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