Cohousing-L Mailing List: Affordable CoHousing

[Zev Paiss (zevpaiss]

Diana,

I have no idea how unusual what we are doing is from a national perspective. 
The City we live in is very desirable and very expensive. The City requires all 
residential developments to contain at least 20% permanently affordable homes. 
In our case since we originally asked for a density increase during our 
development phase the City granted the additional homes but required that all 
the additional homes needed to also be permanently affordable. What we have are 
3 homes at the low income level (80% of AMI) 4 homes at the moderate level (up 
to 120% of AMI) and 4 market rate homes.

When we first moved in the City was just setting up their affordable housing 
selection process. Since they understood we are a community centered 
neighborhood, we were exempt from the lottery selection process they use for 
other permanently affordable homes as long as all applicants passed their 
income guidelines for the home.

That situation is still in place but we now have create with review from the 
City housing department a goodness of fit questionnaire we ask all applicants 
to complete in addition to the series of “events” they must attend to better 
get to know us. I will agree it is a multi-step process but we also have no 
interest in attracting new households only looking for affordable housing.

So far so good.

Zev Paiss
Nomad Community Room Coordinator
1410 Quince Avenue, Boulder CO 80304
720-925-5161