Re: Affordable Housing
From: Kathryn McCamant (kmccamantcohousing-solutions.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2017 12:20:12 -0800 (PST)
A lot of the costs of new housing is the costs of infrastructure to support 
growth. Because “we” don’t want to raise taxes, most expansion of schools, 
public parks, sewer and water utilities, and yes…extending sidewalks, gutters, 
streetlights, etc…..falls on new development. Thus, in California, it is not 
unusual for the permits and fees for new development to be $40K - $100+K PER 
UNIT!  And that would also be true for any “tiny house” development (unless it 
was secondary unit on an existing single family home lot and was not owned 
separately).  The issue for housing affordability is really not the costs of 
construction, but how we as a society deal with the infrastructure costs of 
growth more generally.  

Katie 
-- 
Kathryn McCamant, President
CoHousing Solutions

241B Commercial Street 

Nevada City, CA 95959

T.530.478.1970  C.916.798.4755

www.cohousing-solutions.com
 




On 2/13/17, 8:11 AM, "Cohousing-L on behalf of Diane" 
<cohousing-l-bounces+kmccamant=cohousing-solutions.com [at] cohousing.org on 
behalf of dianeclaire [at] gmail.com> wrote:

    
    Brian, I wonder where you get your figures: you can build a house for 50k
    with only those regulations related to fire, sewer, and wind hazards; 125K
    with we're not sure what regulations; and $215 if you are to have
    sidewalks, and streetlights.
    
    It sounds a lot like the kind of anti-governemnt talk that put Trump into
    office along with his plan of removing two permits or rules for every one
    added (I guess until there are none left).  Try to remember that each of
    those permits came into our building codes in an attempt to stem past
    abuses that shortened lives and turned our environments into smokey,
    filthy, hell holes.  Yes I would like to see more affordable housing; no, I
    do not want to see more tenement fires, polluted rivers, poisoned aquifers,
    etc.
    
    Sure the rules we live by need periodic review to make sure they don't
    contradict each other and do remain current, but we do need rules.
    
    Diane Margolis
    
    On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 11:53 PM, Brian Bartholomew via Cohousing-L <
    cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
    
    >
    > To keep costs low, the project I was involved in wanted swales, no
    > curbs, no sidewalks, few streetlights.  The city required curbs,
    > sidewalks, fancy streetlight poles.  The difference pushed estimated
    > per-unit price from $125K/unit to $215K/unit, which was unaffordable.
    >
    > Other expensive permit requirements included: all building footprints
    > had to be approved up front, which then required them all to be built
    > inside two years and paid for up front with a big mortgage, preventing
    > planning for possible future reduced circumstances.  Residents could
    > not live on site in a trailer or RV while building.
    >
    > Repeal all the site permit requirements unrelated to fire, sewer, wind
    > hazards and houses might be buildable for $50K.
    >
    > Brian
    > _________________________________________________________________
    > Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
    > http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
    >
    >
    >
    
    
    -- 
    Diane Margolis
    175 Richdale Av.
    Cambridge, MA 02140
    617 354 1349
    _________________________________________________________________
    Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
    http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
    
    
    

Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.