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

[R Philip Dowds (rpdowds]

There are many avenues to less expensive housing, including ...
  —  Government subsidy:  Rent supplements or limited equity ownership.  
Construction cost write-downs.  Tax syndications.  Low interest loans and 
mortgages.  Or …
  —  Reduced production cost:  Cheap land (usually rural); smaller units; 
multi-family buildings; limited amenities (e.g., no air conditioning); oddball 
construction (rammed earth and hay bales, for instance).  Or ...
  —  Modified occupancy format:  Dormitories; congregate living (you get a 
personal bed/sitting room, plus shared access to common bath, kitchen and 
dining).  And so on.

None of this, however, has any inevitable relation to cohousing.  If you want 
your own private apartment or townhouse in a safe neighborhood, within walking 
distance of transit and shops, your cohousing will cost you about the same as 
the “regular” housing across the street.  Maybe more, if you are using cost per 
private sq ft as your yardstick.

At Cornerstone, we have four affordable units thanks to Cambridge’s 
“inclusionary zoning” laws.  In particular: We got a permit for increased 
density by agreeing to turn over to the City four units at less than our cost 
of production.  These units, in turn, are made available at below-market cost 
to income-qualified households.  But there was nothing about either cohousing 
or the deal that reduced our cost of production, or allowed us to design 
something other than a conventional apartment.

In some cases, the enhanced sharing opportunities of cohousing might lead to 
considerable savings.  For instance, if we turned in our 40± private vehicles, 
and instead maintained a shared pool of 8± Priuses, we could all enjoy a big 
reduction in transport costs.  We are not yet, however, far down that sharing 
path, and I am not aware that cohousing typically does anything so drastic.

RPD

On Sep 4, 2014, at 12:48 PM, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> 
wrote:

> 
> On Sep 4, 2014, at 9:57 AM, Philip Dowds <rphilipdowds [at] me.com> wrote:
> 
>> 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.
> 
> What people are interested in is expanding the socio-economic requirements 
> outside the middle class. The "affordable" units are still too expensive for 
> many households. Market rate is impossible. People need low income cohousing.
> 
> Before the developers were interested in building cohousing, it was 
> impossible for groups to upfront finance even a few affordable homes, and 
> still impossible to afford to build rental units. Now I think it is becoming 
> more possible. Even HUD is interested.
> 
> One of my thoughts on the Tiny Houses is that people might try some other 
> form of zoning, like the woman who built a boat house in the middle of a 
> field. Opportunity Village looks exactly like all the little cottage vacation 
> places I've seen in the midwest and upper NYState. A central building with 
> showers, etc., surrounded by small cottages the size of a typical bedroom 
> that barely holds two double beds.
> 
> Many of the "hand-made" houses of the 1970s didn't have plumbing or 
> electricity. In temperate climates they didn't have HVAC systems.  One large 
> house near Woodstock NY had many hand-made houses on a hill behind the main 
> house. There are no requirements for "out buildings" in farm areas.
> 
> The requirement for electricity seems unreasonable if people choose to live 
> without it. 
> 
> Banks won't give mortgages on these because they are worried about resale 
> value. And they might not lend money on a house costing so little in any 
> event. A friend who built a geodesic dome in the 1980s had to borrow _more_ 
> money than she needed because the bank minimum on house mortgages was twice 
> her cost. She borrowed the money, built the house, bought a car, and paid the 
> rest back.
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Sociocracy: A Deeper Democracy
> http://www.sociocracy.info
> 
> 
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