Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Separate financing of common house and individual units?

[Raines Cohen (rc3-coho-L]

(here's the reply I sent Mike when he sent this question (before posting to
Cohousing-L) directly to Coho/US via the cohousing.org website, where I
answer questions. -- Raines)

Hi Mike. Thanks for writing to Coho/US.

Most communities treat the common house as the condominium clubhouse and
plan for it and build it in to the cost of the homes. This is standard
across the country, and a best practice for cohousing -- as raising funds
afterwards and getting people into the habit of using it is much harder if
it is not ready for use when the first members move in.

Pretty much any structure like that, for the benefit of the community's
members, would have to be self-financed afterwards; it might be possible to
take out a construction loan for it but you'll be paying a premium and it
could take some time before the home-owner's association has the credit and
assets to do that.

I've visited some communities where the Common House was not owned by all
the homeowners or was built or got its Certificate of Occupancy afterwards
and in general they have less-frequent meals with less participation, and
less of a sense of community as an integral part.

You're buying the homes, so you have the freedom to tell the developer -
please raise our prices by however much per unit so that the budget
includes building what we want. That's what my (former) community did when
the builder did "value engineering" and said "how about baseboard electric
heat" and we said "no thanks, the top of our priority list says let's have
green, quality living so please raise our prices $10,000 each so we can
have the system we want." They were happy oblige.

If the developer is pushing back it is good to look at why and ask whether
that's the right developer for cohousing. If the developer is concerned
about selling the homes at the prices required for Common House
construction, get the homes pre-sold to committed members and you'll remove
that worry.

Raines Cohen, Coho/US Volunteer and Cohousing Coach
now at Berkeley (CA) Cohousing