Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Affordability - Retention

[Margaret Porter (margaret.porter]

Hello, Sally—
 
In order to respond  directly to your questions I thought I’d share some 
thoughts about my experience in our community.  
 
Background
My husband and I are the original buyers of a market-rate home in a senior 
cohousing community that is about 15 years old. 40 percent of our units are in 
the city’s permanently affordable housing program. Many of our members are 
retired on fixed incomes. Our homes range widely in size and amenities.  We 
have spacious and attractive internal and external common spaces that are quite 
generous considering we only have 16 units. The questions you raise about how 
to address the rising costs of operating a community with many members on 
limited and/or fixed incomes are ones we have tried to address since our 
inception.
 
My answers to your specific questions are as follows: 
 
Retention of low-income members:  We have not had a significant issue with 
retention of our low-income members.  A few owners of permanently affordable 
units have left, some for rental units, citing the high cost of home ownership 
here. Some owners of permanently-affordable units who have stayed have reported 
that the very high cost of housing in our city has deterred them from leaving 
when they otherwise might like to do so. While our over-all turnover is 
relatively low, more market-rate owners have left, about half giving up home 
ownership and moving to senior living facilities with supportive services and 
about half purchasing homes in other localities.  
 
Affordability of HOA dues:  This is a significant issue for many of our 
members, not just those in the permanently-affordable units.  We rely heavily 
on volunteer labor and careful budgeting to minimize our operating dues, but as 
we age and inflation persists, particularly in insurance and utility costs, our 
operating dues have increased.  Our operating dues are assessed equally across 
all 16 units, with an increment for additional household members.  Our reserve 
dues are assessed by unit square footage. All of our members have always met 
their dues obligations. The widely-varying size and cost of our units and the 
differing incomes of our members have sometimes led to difficult conversations 
about how to fund our community. Thus far, we have managed to accommodate those 
differences. We have never actively pursued either a sliding scale based on 
income or a hardship fund. The city’s permanently affordable program addresses 
home ownership but not HOA dues, either for operating dues or for reserves.  In 
my personal view, this is a significant flaw in the program. 
 
Increase in reserve dues:  As often happens with HOA developments, developers 
underestimate reserve costs; then when an HOA does a required reserve study, 
the study recommends increases in reserve dues.  We had this experience early 
on and significantly increased our reserve dues over a 5-year period.  We 
established a voluntary contribution program to assist members for whom this 
significant increase was a hardship.  The program was met with mixed reviews 
and we terminated it at the conclusion of the acceleration period.
 
Special assessments: We have so far been able to avoid special assessments. We 
have had an ongoing goal to avoid them.
 
General Observations
 
It is my understanding that the National Cohousing Association is working to 
try to find ways of making cohousing more diverse, inclusive and affordable.  
With our 15 years of experience of living in a community of homes with 
significantly different costs, sizes and amenities, I have some suggestions for 
building cohousing communities that I believe would further these goals.
 
When my husband and I bought into this community, we were attracted, and still 
are, by its commitment to economic diversity.  At the time, we did not 
appreciate that some owners of the permanently-affordable units who became 
dissatisfied with cohousing and/or our particular community might feel that for 
financial reasons that they have fewer options to leave and hence might feel 
locked-in-place. 
 
Our cohousing community was established as a condominium community in which the 
market-rate units are all larger, usually much larger, than the 
permanently-affordable units, and with significantly more amenities. In my 
view, this structure unnecessarily exacerbates our economic differences. The 
city’s restrictions on apartment amenities and resale of permanently affordable 
homes further highlight these economic differences.
 
I applaud the Cohousing Association’s efforts to address the lack of 
affordability and diversity in cohousing. My suggestions for future cohousing 
development would be to 
·      adopt an ownership model other than condominiums, 
·      make all the units roughly of comparable size with similar amenities, 
·      minimize the price differential between the market-rate and 
permanently-affordable units
·      create common spaces whose size and amenities can be financed and 
maintained by all units equally
·      allocate private space on some model other than the financial resources 
of the participants.
 
I acknowledge that this approach might present challenges to funding the 
building and maintenance of common spaces.  However, I believe it would lessen 
the tension around the financial value of individual units and the financial 
resources of their residents. The structure of the community would not 
highlight the economic disparities of its members and might possibly increase 
the ability to build an equitable community together, regardless of differences 
in individual resources. 
 
 Good luck,
Margaret Porter

> On Feb 1, 2023, at 5:09 PM, Sally Hardy via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello all, this is my first time posting to the listserv so feel free to 
> provide guidance on how best to proceed...
> We at Aria Cohousing in Denver are interested in hearing from other 
> communities with affordable units and what ideas/approaches have been used to 
> retain low income members,  How are communities dealing with HOA fee 
> increases and/or special assessments?  Do you have hardship funds?  A sliding 
> scale?  Are there other ways you are helping members with financial 
> limitations?   
> Aria has 9 affordable units (8 standard, 1 Habitat for Humanity) of our 28 
> total.  There have been major hail storms in Colorado that have caused 
> significant increases to insurance premiums and deductibles, and we are also 
> working to increase our reserves given recommendations from a recent Reserve 
> Study .  
> I have copied the other members of the Aria group researching options. 
> Thanks for your input.
> Sally Hardy
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