Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Is in-house plumbing and electric a must?

[Philip Dowds (rphilipdowds]

This topic seems to be jumbling things up a bit.  There are definitely market 
segments serving the housing needs of special populations, like the homeless, 
elderly, students, soldiers and so on.  The designs and codes for housing of 
this type can be, and should be, different from those for “regular” housing.

But cohousing — despite the inclusion of an occasional affordable unit — serves 
“regular” households and families (and probably, quite often, of an 
upper-middle class demographic).  There is no reason to expect cohousing to be 
“cheaper” than “regular” housing.  Households will spend about the same portion 
of their budgets on cohousing as they would on regular housing.  But they a get 
a different product.  And a different lifestyle.

RPD

On Sep 3, 2014, at 11:59 PM, Jerry McIntire <jerry.mcintire [at] gmail.com> 
wrote:

> 
> Sharing is good, and for many homeless folks, sharing plumbing and
> electricity is a necessity. I have visited Opportunity Village. As in
> cohousing communities, the residents were learning to work and make
> decisions together-- definite progress, and to me, one of the most
> important features of cohousing.
> 
> They had special zoning from the city which recognized that requiring each
> of the dwelling units to have plumbing and electrical service would have
> made them unaffordable. Dane, that's what it would take, because as Tom
> points out, most municipal codes for residences require plumbing and
> electrical service.
> 
> Jerry
> 
> -- 
> Jerry McIntire
> Stone's Throw Ecovillage, in the heart of Wisconsin's beautiful Driftless
> region
> http://stonesthrowcommunity.wordpress.com/
> 1-608-637-8018
> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 6:12 PM, R Philip Dowds <rpdowds [at] comcast.net> 
> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I fear there may be some legal obstacles here.  State and local housing
>> and sanitation codes typically require minimum conditions of plumbing and
>> heating before a structure can be classed as a dwelling unit.  If it’s not
>> a recognized dwelling unit, you cannot dwell there, meaning you have no
>> address, meaning you can’t register to vote.  And if you’re trying to raise
>> children, you may attract the attention of state and local child protection
>> agencies.  And so on.
>> 
>> In rural areas, a fair number of people live off the grid and, by
>> definition, out of the mainstream.  These people tend to have a lot of
>> issues.  Sharing is good, but cohousing is not camping.
>> 
>> RPD
>> 
>> On Sep 3, 2014, at 6:05 PM, Kay Wilson Fisk <kwilsonfisk [at] comcast.net>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> This is a fascinating concept: is it better to provide
>>> housing with shared plumbing to decrease the homeless
>>> population, or is it better to provide more comfort and
>>> leave the homeless folks in the woods?
>>> 
>>> Personally, I would not consider living in housing without
>>> plumbing and electricity--not, that is, unless I were
>>> homeless.
>>> 
>>> It would be an interesting experiment to build half the
>>> housing with plumbing and electricity, and the other half
>>> without. Perhaps the second half could be designed in such a
>>> way as to allow retrofitting of these utilities at a future
>>> time if the concept proved to be a problem.
>>> 
>>> Kay
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Cohousing-L
>>> [mailto:cohousing-l-bounces+kwilsonfisk=comcast.net@cohousin
>>> g.org] On Behalf Of Dane Laverty
>>> Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 12:48 PM
>>> To: Cohousing-L
>>> Subject: [C-L]_ Is in-house plumbing and electric a must?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Diana just introduced me to Opportunity Village, and now I
>>> see this link show up on my Facebook feed:
>>> http://www.tentcityurbanism.com/2014/09/to-plumb-or-not-to-p
>>> lumb.html .
>>> 
>>> Opportunity Village is a 30-unit community of 8x8 structures
>>> that have no utility hookups. There is a shared central
>>> facility with water and electricity. The group is looking to
>>> build a new community ("Emerald Village"), and the town is
>>> encouraging them to include electricity and plumbing in
>>> these units.
>>> 
>>> So my question for the group: would you consider living in a
>>> cohousing community where water and electricity were
>>> provided only to the common house and not to the individual
>>> units? This is interesting to me as way to reduce costs in
>>> developing a cohousing community.
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>> Dane Laverty
>>> Roseville, CA
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>> 
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