Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Governance & Income Inequality [ was Common house design, rooms, and room sizes?

[Peter Goldstein (peterhansgoldstein]

Jerome Garciano and Betsy Morris gave an excellent talk about building for
affordability at the Northeast Summit in '13. They may be your best bet for
detailed info on maximizing affordability.

My notes from the talk are only so good, but the gist is affordability is
served by a combination of internal and external strategies. The internal
strategies include building in a thrifty way, adjusting pricing so more
expensive units cover less expensive ones, and setting up separate
affordability funds. The external ones are going to depend on what state
and federal programs you're eligible for. The presentation lists:

Community development block grants
Low income housing tax credits
HOME investment partnerships program
Federal Private activity tax-exempt bonds for housing
Federal Housing Choice (Section 8) Vouchers

They upheld some examples as having done affordability well:
Elderspirit (Abingdon, VA)
Cambridge Cohousing (Cambridge, MA)
Petaluma Avenue Homes (Sebastopol, CA)
Troy Gardens (Madison, WI)
Boulder Creek Community (Boulder, CO)

- Peter

On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 6:57 PM, Emilie Parker <emilie.v.parker [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> It scares me that we are going against your recommendation with this.  How
> do you think we can overcome the income inequality issue?
>
>
>
> -----------------
> Emilie Parker
> emilie.v.parker [at] gmail.com
> 303-317-4558 main
> 240-350-8533 cell
>
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2015 at 7:44 AM, Emilie Parker <emilie.v.parker [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Sharon Villines <
> sharon [at] sharonvillines.com
> > > wrote:
> >
> >> Push comes to shove when people have different aims. That's why I think
> >> low income cohousing communities need to be low income cohousing
> >> communities and not a mix of low cost units, "affordable" units, and
> market
> >> rate+ units.
> >
> >
> > Yes we'll all have to be on the same page about our values and aims.
> >
> > "Affordable" is through programs administered by the county to assist
> > people who qualify and are selected.  County guidelines for incomes have
> to
> > be something like between 20,000 and $45,000 per year for one person
> family
> > to qualify for that.  Other resident's incomes will probably be easily in
> > the twice that range.
> >
> > Our aim is to build our lives sustainably with an art focus and I think
> we
> > probably need to have an agreed upon strategy for dealing with income
> > inequality going into this as part of our values.  I'm not sure what that
> > would look like.
> >
> > One strategy we've discussed for physical structures is to build the
> homes
> > with lower cost fixtures and amenities, but very good net 0 construction.
> > Once we get occupancy approvals artists who are homeowners are free to
> > invest in their own homes and have their homes upgraded at any time or do
> > whatever upgrades and improvements or replacements they want.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----------------
> > Emilie Parker
> > emilie.v.parker [at] gmail.com
> > 303-317-4558 main
> > 240-350-8533 cell
> >
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