Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing for the Rest of Us [was Durham, NC: 2BR/2BA in Village Hearth

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Nov 10, 2022, at 8:18 PM, Virgil Huston <virgil.huston1955 [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> I have been on this listserv for years and never seen a co-housing home I 
> could even hope to
> afford in any location, plus HOA fees are as much as I remember mortgage 
> payments to be. I am fixed income Army retired and I am super happy I own my 
> single house in what I call a great lower income neighborhood (that is worth 
> a fourth of this condo price).

Liz has explained all the reasons newly constructed housing co or no is 
expensive. And all the misguided regulations and market realities keep it 
expensive. These are not the result of the nature of cohousing. If anything, 
cohousing has been gradually able to include some subsidized units, something 
that other developments do not do on a regular basis although some 
jurisdictions are requiring it.

But people have found ways around this outside of new construction. 
Understanding zoning and finding a zoning board that will grant a variance is 
one option. It takes focus effort over time but has been done. Many cohousing 
communities have had to change or get variances for multi-household 
construction in areas zoned single family.

The move toward allowing accessory dwelling units is an opportunity to rehab a 
neighborhood with greater density and a wider range of unit sizes. One of the 
advantages of rehabbing is the ability to live in the house while rehabbing it. 
It’s dusty and noisy but it’s a perfect example of building wealth. And using 
your labor instead of paying for someone else’s. 

> My neighborhood is old and certainly
> not upscale, but is safe and very nice, mixed rental and owner and very 
> diverse (probably way more diverse than any co-housing). It is a great 
> neighborhood and I love it, but I would also love the community that 
> co-housing promises.

One example of building up neighborhoods took place in an aging neighborhood of 
homes that had been occupied for decades by stable households, a mix of rented 
and owned. The community organized itself to began rehabbing houses as they 
were vacant. By doing one house at a time in non-adjacent lots, they improved 
the quality of the whole neighborhood. They did what real estate investors 
never do — they increased the livability of one house on a block of 
deteriorating homes. By doing so, they increased the desirability of the houses 
around it.

They didn’t buy blocks of houses and tear them down to build McMansions or 
shopping malls. The area remained the same neighborhood with houses of the same 
size, small houses that no one builds any more because there is more profit in 
bigger houses, but now they looked like houses that someone cared about. 
Because they did.

If you have one of those houses and want to have cohousing, you could start 
behaving as if you have cohousing already. Meeting neighbors. Offering to swap 
services. Neighborhood outdoor pot lucks. Get permits to block off a street on 
weekends so everyone can enjoy a park like space. Offer gardening space in your 
yard to someone who has none or needs more. 

One woman with 4 children who also happened to have a husband who with a very 
high salary gave up on living in cohousing because the years were passing and 
she needed to make a commitment to a school district for her children. She and 
her husband bought a house in a newer development at the end of the street on 
one of those circles. One day she made bags of apples with a note and hung them 
on all her neighbor’s doors. The note was an invitation to a neighborhood 
potluck at her house the following Sunday. She was deeply depressed because no 
one responded. No notes. No phone calls. No waving across the driveways. 
Nothing changed.

But on Sunday, she put a ribbon on her open door. And everyone came. She had 
taken the first step to developing a Neighbor Net.

I remember one condo I lived in in NYC. Most were rented 500SF studios and 
600SF 1 bedrooms. It was a 1930s solid building with very wide hallways. Wide 
enough to have set up tables for potlucks. There were windows along one side 
with those translucent glass blocks that let light in. If I had known then what 
I know from living in cohousing, I would have invited everyone on the floor to 
bring chairs and set up a table for coffee in the morning and potlucks at 
night. The residents were a mix of NYU students from everywhere including one 
of those cute Japanese girls who dress like dolls and women who had outlived 
their husbands and young couples.

In a covert way we all knew each other and knew our habits of coming and going. 
We noticed if someone was missing or behaving oddly. But what was missing was 
the permission to know each other. That’s one of the first things cohousing 
brings — the expectation that we know each other and interact. At minimum, you 
smile and say hello. 

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org