Co-housing

Is affordable co-housing possible for public housing schemes in Malaysia?

The ideals and concepts of co-housing are to encourage social interaction among residents without sacrificing private individual space. The living units are usually smaller in size but residents get to share multiple common facilities such as open space, gardens, guest units, common living and dining space. Co-housing is very suitable for single, couple, even senior citizen to live under one big roof. This is indeed a very good idea, we can say co-housing as an antidote for isolation.  

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But, is co-housing affordable? especially for low-income groups?

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If it is affordable by low-income groups, will it be a good solution for public housing in Malaysia? From my point of view, it is possible to be initiated in Malaysia. Malaysia's culture often shows appreciation of community support through open house, gatherings, giving haircuts to neighbors, exchange food especially in rural areas. But it is sad to say that public housing design in our urban areas does not really consider allocating large proportion of common place for residents' interaction to take place because it is less profitable. So, from an architecture point of view, it would be great to start thinking of involving resident participation in this idea of co-housing especially for low income groups (B40). Then, architects could formulate a better idea in making creative design out of affordable housing construction cost. But, perhaps another difficulty arises here, where most of the low-income groups used to live in affordable housing managed by third-party property managers. These residents might be difficult to adopt consensus in decision making, taking initiative to do site maintenance, community meals, etc. Mixed income co-housing perhaps can be helpful to assist low-income residents with encouraging internal and external subsidies to further ensure participation of all income groups in community engagement. In the USA, internal subsidies are good to help homeowners subsidize their mortgage payments/ allow a lower income household to rent a smaller home within the community. It can also be community loans to help low-income households. Introducing mixed income co-housing perhaps will financially ensure the affordability of co-housing for low and middle income groups in Malaysia in the future.

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“As an architect, you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.”

- Norman Foster