DELIVERING COOPERATIVE HOUSING

Overview

Cooperative housing models are common across Europe, and provide an attractive “third option” for delivering housing beyond traditional rental and ownership models. Despite this, the model is not present and poorly understood in Aotearoa. The Urban Advisory (TUA) have distilled key lessons from visiting several European cooperatives in this report to show the wider potential of cooperatives and how they could work here. 

Many New Zealanders are locked out of home ownership and trapped in expensive, insecure rentals. Innovative housing models have the potential to address parts of Aotearoa’s housing crisis - the first step is understanding the potential, and how they may be delivered. This report answers six questions:

1. What is cooperative housing?
2. How do housing cooperatives work? 
3. Who do housing cooperatives serve?
4. How are housing cooperatives funded?
5. How are housing cooperatives managed?
6. What kind of typologies can a housing cooperative be? 

Using Case Studies from Europe, this report gives a short overview of how cooperatives have provided safe, affordable housing around the world and how they could be one part of the solution to Aotearoa’s housing crisis. 

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