Affordable Cohousing: Making the Numbers Work

Half Day Workshop: Thur 1:30 – 5:00

Price: $60

Provides an overview of strategies currently in use in cohousing, and an introduction to the steps that a forming group can take early on to identify the most promising opportunities for them, and how even building groups can increase affordability in their projects. Topics to be covered include technical and practical definitions of affordability, building your case, and finding the right partners. We'll go over basics of inclusionary zoning, affordable-housing finance. In this extended format, we'll go through the basic budgets of cohousing developments and look at how to increase affordability in three different, sometimes complementary, often contradictory ways:

• Spend less (aka "build cheap") (but still make it nice enough that people want to buy it)
• Use internal price allocations (i.e. charge more for some units to make others more affordable)
• Get money elsewhere (aka "find subsidies") The challenge is, most subsidies, where you can find them, come with strings attached, limitations on who can benefit (typically income restrictions), lottery requirements that get in the way of member participation, and, paradoxically, local-hire and materials rules that can actually increase the cost of a project.

We'll share some case studies of cohousing projects that have used some of these strategies, and look at the short-term and long-term effects.

PRESENTER: Betsy Morris, betsy [at] kali [dot] com.
Betsy Morris, Cohousing Coach with Planning for Sustainable Communities, lives at Berkeley (CA) Cohousing and serves as research director for Coho/US. She is a long-time community and economic development planning and research consultant, with over 20 years experience on the east and west coasts. She has developed trainings for grassroots leaders, and created neighborhood housing plans with an emphasis on affordable housing. She has a Masters and Doctorate in City and Regional Planning.