The hard thing is that ... without one rich member of a community ... it's pretty hard to get a house big enough that some kind of co-living thing can be set up.
Like it probably wouldn't be hard for a group of people to come together and pay for a shared space
but someone would have to pay for the up front costs and not many people have that kind of money... especially not among the folks in their late 20s and early 30s who might like this kind of arrangement
Maybe it's a place for a foundation who cares about housing to step in. Put the money up front, get paid back and then let the community keep it, with some kind of agreement to keep it that way hosting multiple people for at least another decade or so, even as folks age out.
The possible root of the difficulty in NYC starts with the Housing Maintance Code (27-2001 for those keeping score), which goes to great lengths to prohibit "Not more than three unrelated persons occupying a dwelling unit in a congregate housing or shared living arrangement and maintaining a common household......" This has been a topic of discussion for a while (as discussed in the great seminar you held years ago), but I'm not aware of any progress. I'm not sure if our mayor, an advocate of windowless bedrooms and apartments without kitchens (he claims his son "only eats in restaurants or gets takeout") has this on his radar. I totally agreee that it's a compelling use of large floor plate offices, but if there is an obvious path around the code roadblocks chime in! We recently did a project which included housing 30 tutors in a portion of a school, but it was made possible because the existing use was a convent, and DOB, after a lengthy review process, allowed it without a change of use. (apprently in the eyes of the DOB, nuns are all part of one family).
Interesting context! I would imagine that some cities can do spot zoning for office building conversions since they're providing all sorts of financial incentives ...
Yeah it's for sure a bummer.
The hard thing is that ... without one rich member of a community ... it's pretty hard to get a house big enough that some kind of co-living thing can be set up.
Like it probably wouldn't be hard for a group of people to come together and pay for a shared space
but someone would have to pay for the up front costs and not many people have that kind of money... especially not among the folks in their late 20s and early 30s who might like this kind of arrangement
Maybe it's a place for a foundation who cares about housing to step in. Put the money up front, get paid back and then let the community keep it, with some kind of agreement to keep it that way hosting multiple people for at least another decade or so, even as folks age out.
The possible root of the difficulty in NYC starts with the Housing Maintance Code (27-2001 for those keeping score), which goes to great lengths to prohibit "Not more than three unrelated persons occupying a dwelling unit in a congregate housing or shared living arrangement and maintaining a common household......" This has been a topic of discussion for a while (as discussed in the great seminar you held years ago), but I'm not aware of any progress. I'm not sure if our mayor, an advocate of windowless bedrooms and apartments without kitchens (he claims his son "only eats in restaurants or gets takeout") has this on his radar. I totally agreee that it's a compelling use of large floor plate offices, but if there is an obvious path around the code roadblocks chime in! We recently did a project which included housing 30 tutors in a portion of a school, but it was made possible because the existing use was a convent, and DOB, after a lengthy review process, allowed it without a change of use. (apprently in the eyes of the DOB, nuns are all part of one family).
Interesting context! I would imagine that some cities can do spot zoning for office building conversions since they're providing all sorts of financial incentives ...