Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: affordable housing

[Brian Bartholomew (bartholomew.brian]

 R Philip Dowds <rphilipdowds [at] me.com> writes:

> I'm describing a dwelling design model used mostly college dormitories
> and care facilities, but there's no reason why it can't work out for
> economical options in cohousing as well. Best of all, it's probably
> code-legal in most jurisdictions. A four bedroom, four bathroom
> housing unit might attract some interest and speculation during public
> plan review, but few jurisdictions are willing to get involved in
> limiting dwelling unit size, or controlling occupancy over time.

Especially if you plan to quietly break the zoning limit on how many
unrelated adults can live in one house, like I see college students
do. Don't reveal it by parking six cars at one house.

Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> writes:

> But we are also back to the original discussion -- cohousing has not
> yet accomplished building rental units.

Yes I agree, where the renters or private mortgagees are routinely
treated as equal community members aside from the not-wasting-
the-asset ownership interest and loan guarantee considerations. I've
heard of some British nobility arrangements where persons can acquire
the right to use and live in a real estate property until death, but
not the right to sell or destroy the real estate property.

Brian