Co-op Housing
Category: Home Ownership | Author(s): Arthur Costa & Carolina Nappi
Image Credit: Rare Birds Co-op Housing
Location Address: 772 Battle St W, Kamloops, BC, Canada
Subject
As individuals grow and eventually have to leave their families houses, acquiring a property is one of their main goals in personal life. With the Kamloops housing crisis and the economic recession going on now, that goal may be hard to reach since the demand for places is too high to be met and, at the same time, houses and apartments are overpriced. According to Cheryl Gladu, who is a researcher in residence at Thompson Rivers University and the City of Kamloops, there has been a significant increase in the number of the population that rent a property or share a property (because of how high the living cost can be) compared to ownership-household in British Columbia, which is not good data for those who desire to buy something. Projects like Co-op Housing ownership where people get to buy a share of the house and live in a community might be a great solution in order to help the housing crisis
Co-op Housing is a project that can be beneficial not only for young adults who want to already own an asset but also for the seniors who want to downsize.
Crisis
This crisis has affected a group of people that are not as stable in life, such as seniors and young adults. Cooperative housing is a way to “own” a portion of a house while having a great sense of community living.
These communities have an equally shared responsibility within the duties and chores of the house and the community involved in it. The project is also sustainable.
This issue should be a matter for all those who live in the city. If people can not afford to buy houses and spend more than 30% alone on shelter costs, there is no room for savings and growing investments.
We went on a field research across Kamloops and visited two ownership Co-op housings, one being a shared house with 6 suites and the other one being more like a condo with several units, exclusively for seniors. From our conversations with both Co-ops representatives, both of them said how beneficial for society, projects like that are and it is a shame that there are only two of them in a 100.000 population city.
Co-op Housing is a phenomenal project that helps address the housing crisis in many ways and could be, perhaps, the society’s current missing middle.
Video Credit: A little bit of what we recorded on our field research
Community Implications
This current crisis is relevant to even those that do not need to worry about money and the housing market because Kamloops is a town with a huge sense of community. According to Statistics Canada (2021), 11.6% of Kamloops households spend more than 30% of their income on shelter costs which is considered not affordable. Although it is not related to home ownership, it is also interesting to point out that this number goes up to 36.1% when it comes to renting, the number of people renting is higher because the housing market is too expensive to buy a property.
With the prices being at their highest and the bank loans having high elevated interests Co-op housing can be desirable. As said by Mary, one of the owners of Rare Birds Co-op Housing, their property increases its value every 3 years according to the inflation and current market prices. The price now stands at $250.000 (plus $770/month for utilities and all food) for a share of the house, so that buyers become owners. A share gives you a suite with a bedroom, full bathroom, large closet, and sitting area. The house also includes an expansive common kitchen, dining and living room, pantry, laundry room, storage, guest bathrooms, multi-functional spaces, and guest spaces. There are six suites in the house so the total property value is 1.500.000 with 6 owners, which can be either single persons or couples. The Rare Birds Co-op Housing was also awarded as Best Multi-Family Development, Best House Design, and the FortisBC Award for Building Energy Efficiency. It is nice to have projects like that in town because it is way more affordable for those who are young adults and want to start a life, owning a property is obviously an asset and the suite can be sold for more expensive in the future. The Co-op is also beneficial for seniors who want to downsize or any others who want to live in a community with sustainable activities for a cheaper price than whats is on the market.
Now speaking a little bit about Cottonwood Manor, this one is a bit different, it is a seniours-only (55+) complex of 120 units for sale, ranging from roughly 790 sq ft to 1,300 sq ft. “Independent living with community sense” is what they claim. They also have 24 units for rent but we won’t touch on that because our topic covers only home ownership. They have many common areas that are used by the community to play games, socialize, eat and even buy & sell hand-made items. Each suite also comes with a separate storage unit as well as plenty of closet space. For this project, the government gets 15% of the sold units, which is a good reason for it to invest more funds in Co-ops like this. It would be nice to see one that is not exclusively for seniors and is open to the whole society.
Despite the fact that Rare Birds and Cottonwood Manor are different projects they both are Co-op Housing and help address the housing crises, so they should be incentivized. So as an overview of the Co-op projects, their main aspects to help Kamloops get away with a housing crisis are, being much more affordable (still being competitive in the market) and also the fact that they bring the sense of living in a community.
Click or press on images to expand.
A Way Forward
We recognize that no one suggestion will solve the housing crisis in Kamloops, but based on our research, here are some ideas that may help move us even slightly forward.
A great step has already been taken as there is one more Co-op Housing Project being developed right now and it is called “Propolis Co-op Housing”. Incentivizing initiatives like this is a good path because they are very beneficial to the Kamloops community. Financial subsidies from the government are welcomed and can be also good for the government itself, as it will make money off it, like in the Cottonwood Manor. A way Foward or at least a good start would be opening society’s eyes to what they could be missing out on, implementing policies and lowering mortgage loans in order to incentive projects like Rare Birds, Cottonwood Manor and the developing Propolis Co-op. Society should pay more attention to the two already existing projects that we have in Kamloops and learn from them.