With rents skyrocketing in my adopted city of Austin, TX I've been thinking of ways in which we can permanently solve the housing crisis and I promptly thought of housing cooperatives.
Housing cooperatives offer rates that are significantly cheaper than private housing and give more people the ability to own their own apartments in an urban environment. I will now explain how my scheme can work.
Financing:
The government should first offer interest-free or near interest-free loans to housing cooperatives for the purposes of founding the cooperative and expansion. Of course, there should be a review process to make sure that there is a need for units so that money isn't being thrown away to construct empty rooms.
Zoning:
It should be a law that say at least 50% of all housing units in a large city is mid to high-density housing. Of these units, say 50% of these units need to be classified as “affordable housing”. The specific proportions can be changed according to a region's circumstances and as scientific information becomes more available for the most benefit. Additionally, this plan can be executed incrementally so that single-family homes aren't vacated in mass. Additionally, taxes can be gradually levied on single-family homes to reflect their true cost to the city, since in terms of services, the urban core of a city is more profitable over single-family homes. This is true even in areas with economically depressed downtowns.
Cities will need to present a zoning plan that complies with these requirements. If a city fails to provide this, the federal / state government will now have to provide a plan that would and the rezoned land will automatically be allocated for housing coops. This will give cities incentive to cooperate with the plan since if they cooperate, they can choose where to place these developments and allow private developers to develop the land instead.
Urban Design:
Each housing cooperative should be like a mini-city by itself with regular day amenities offered within the superblock (i.e a small clinic, grocery store, small park, basketball courts…). It should conform to the superblock idea by banning all motor traffic coming into the superblock. Parking on the outskirts of the superblock for motor vehicles should be restricted to only small cars and mopeds / motorcycles. Bike and pedestrian traffic will be encouraged and the internal streets will be configured for this. This would encourage a more sustainable and healthier lifestyle for the inhabitants of the development as well as strengthen the social cohesion of the community. No large parking structures will also lower the cost of the development.
In the center of the development would exist a small square for “hanging out”. Small concessions may also line this square and may be leased out by the cooperative to keep the scheme afloat.
Architectural Design:
Each housing unit will be developed for efficiency. A catalog of building designs should be designed by architects to take into account the climate of the area to optimize energy usage. Solar panels will be placed on the roofs of each building to reduce energy usage during the summer (shading). These solar panels may be sourced by an external associated group that buys solar panels in bulk for every housing cooperative in the country to keep costs down. The energy may also be sold back to the grid to strengthen the scheme. Individual cooperatives may submit their own plans if they meet the energy requirements.
Additionally, all housing cooperatives will be designed to be affordable. So, there will be no coops controlling luxury housing.
Edit: Each housing development should be catered to a specific group(s). For example, families should not have to share a community with rowdy college students.
Also, the buildings should be modular, with the different between a family apartment and a singles apartment is that one simply has more rooms to save on cost.