Consider the cooperative model for the provision of affordable housing, says Mark Snell, chairman of Equilibrium Community Ecology Inc.

According to Snell, the state government should facilitate cooperative ownership to provide affordable housing. Cost-based limited-equity cooperatives are an effective means of providing affordable housing on a perpetual basis and would cost the government comparatively little to support.

Equilibrium plans to use such a model to establish an eco-village on the NSW Central Coast.

Snell said the cooperative ownership model was a middle ground between the classic scenarios of rental and private home ownership. "A person renting pays money that is never returned to them," he said. "A person buying a home can usually expect a capital gain well in excess of inflation. In a cost-based limited-equity cooperative, a person will pay for a shareholding and have the money they have paid returned to them when they leave."

Snell said this was ideal for low-income earners. It allowed them to build equity in their own home. It was also ideal for councils and governments, being essentially self-financing, requiring minimal government support, and its benefits were ongoing.

See also:
Affordable Housing through Cooperative Ownership
Habitat for Humanity Australia
The Cohousing Network
communitybuilders.nsw Discussion Forum

More from Mark Snell on cooperative housing...

Some people may associate cooperative housing with the hippies of the 1960s and 70s, but it's gaining support today and may be an important way of ensuring we can own homes in the future.

"Last week we found out about the push towards high density housing in Australian cities, and how the principle of strata title will have to develop to accommodate these changes. Well this week, we're looking at another way of organising the legal and social side of living: cooperative housing." Alan Saunder

Radio National, Saturday Extra with Geraldine Doogue Oct 1, 2005

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