Mini-dorms, Group Living Accomodations, and Parking

Co-ops and other shared houses tend to have higher population densities than their neighbors, and this can sometimes cause conflict, especially over parking.  At the last City Council meeting, the City of Berkeley heard legislation to add regulations to rooming houses.  The action was prompted by 2133 Parker Street, a 19-bedroom rooming house six blocks south of UC Berkeley.  The building was once a 3 story duplex with a garage on the first floor and two apartments with a total of six bedrooms on the upper floors.  Two years ago, the building was sold and the new owner expanded and renovated the building with the following notable additions:
- Garage converted into a 3rd unit.
- Attic space expanded into a 4th floor with more bedrooms.


2133 Parker is located in a R2-A low/mid density residential area consisting of houses, duplexes, and small apartment buildings.  See map below. 

Not surprisingly, neighbors were unhappy about the expansion - which violated some zoning regulations - and took their case to the City.  A detailed description of some neighbors' reaction to the project, as well as before and after photos of the building, can be found at the 2133 Parker blog. 

The neighbors' main land use related complaints were:
- Building has too many bedrooms
- Building has insufficient parking, leading to shortage of streetside spaces
- Building is too tall

Once residents moved in, a couple more complaints surfaced:
- Noisy parties
- Recycling and garbage out of control.

 The outcome of the meeting was the following:

1. The property owner had to make 2133 Parker comply with the zoning code by reducing the number of bedrooms from 19 to the code compliant 7.   The zoning code limits the number of bedrooms a building can have based on the size of the piece of land, in this zone, one per 800 square feet.  
2. In R-2 multiple family residential zones, buildings adding bedrooms beyond the 5th to a house or apartment would no longer be eligible for residential parking permit (RPPs).  RPPs are permits sold to residents at a nominal $35 a year to park for unlimited amounts of time in 2-hour zones in their neighborhood.
3. Mini dorms would require an onsite manager to handle noise complaints and deal with recycling.  The city define mini-dorms as follows:
   
   Section 13.42.020.A. is amended to read:
   “A. “Mini-dorm” means any building in a R-2 or R-2A Zoning District in which any Dwelling Unit in the building contains more than five Bedrooms and the Gross Floor Area of that Dwelling Unit devoted to Bedrooms is more than 60% of the total Gross Floor Area. For purposes of this subdivision, the Gross Floor Area of any room, closet or other ancillary space that can be entered only through a Bedroom shall be considered part of the Gross Floor Area of that Bedroom. Permitted and Legal non-conforming Sororities, Fraternities, and Student Co-ops shall not be considered Mini-Dorms, as long as they have a resident manager.”

Let's take a co-op look at all of this...

 The Parking Issue:
The city's zoning code requires 1 space per 5 residents in R-2 zones.  Experience in the student co-op (which are located mostly in R-3 and R-4 zones closer to campus) has been that about 1 in 10 to 1 in 8 residents will keep a car in Berkeley.  (See the article on Lothlorien)  So 1 in 5 is reasonable.  In fact, at non-student co-ops, which are more likely to be in R-2 zones, car ownership is often 1 in 3 or 1 in 4. 

However, requiring more onsite parking might not be the most effective way of making sure there are enough street spaces to go around.  At $35 a year, the permits are underpriced.  Often in the student co-ops, onsite spaces sit empty because residents would rather pay $35 a year to park on the street instead of $500-700 to park in a lot or garage.  Many of these vehicles are used only a few times a month, and raising the parking cost would probably convince a number of their owners to switch to carshare or other transportation.

It remains to be seen what residents in buildings ineligible for parking permits will do.  My guess is they will register their car at a friend's house - something people already do now to park in an area closer to where they want to be.  

The bedroom density issue:
Closely tied to the parking issue.  However, loopholes abound: this could encourage fewer, larger double bedrooms instead of smaller singles.

The Recycling and Garbage and Resident Manager Issue:
Here the problem was more of a management one: building owners not providing enough trash cans, probably since the city charges for garbage pickup by the number of bins.  In a rooming house, where garbage pickup is included in rent, residents may lack incentive to reduce waste. In any case it is unlikely this part of the ordinance will ever take effect, since for a building to have bedrooms account for 60% of floor area would require some very impressive architectural gymnastics.  Apartment buildings average 10-15%.  The typical large student co-op in Berkeley such as Lothlorien is about 20% bedroom.  Even Pacifico, with its ultra-efficient floor plan, is only around 30-40%.  Stairs, bathrooms, kitchens, hallways - these all take up lots of space.  A building that is 60% bedroom would require nested bedrooms that have to be entered via other bedrooms, have insufficient bathrooms, and have almost no common space. 


The noise issue:
 It's true, the more people live in one place, the more likely it's someone's birthday or some other occasion to party.  However, this is more of a management issue as opposed to an architectural one. 

So at the end of the day, it's about parking, as usual
Competition for street parking is the biggest impact a high-density residence tends to have on its neighborhood.  The city could charge more for this scarce resource, but this tends to anger residents who suddenly have to pay more for the same service.  Then there is the privatization approach, where the street parking spaces in front of a house belong to the owner to do whatever they want with it - keep it for themselves, rent it out, or charge the public to park in.  The city could also encourage more cycling and public transit use, but when self-proclaimed environmentalist communities can only get down to 1 car per 4 residents after they are no longer students, some parking will be required in the near future. 

Rochdale Village Co-op Apartments, Berkeley

I met Oscar, the President of Rochdale Village Cooperative Apartments and a current resident, in the courtyard (pictured above).

History:

Rochdale Village was constructed in 1971 on the site of the McKinley Continuation School.¹ It was named after the English Town of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. It was in this town that the Rochdale Pioneers decided on the Rochdale Principles of Cooperation. The principles were revised by the International Co-operative Alliance in 1966 and are still in use today.²

1. Open, voluntary membership.
2. Democratic governance.
3. Limited return on equity.
4. Surplus belongs to members.
5. Education of members and public in cooperative principles.
6. Cooperation between cooperatives.
7. Concern for community

The project was part of an effort to expand low-cost housing for UCB students. The Berkeley Student Cooperative nonprofit received a low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to carry out the project. Years earlier, Harry Kingman had led co-opers to lobby Congress to make student co-ops eligible for this kind of loan.³ Since the 1970s, solar panels and high-efficiency furnaces and water heaters were added.

Overview:

• 259 residents
• 96 units (studios and 2, 3, and 4 bedroom apartments)
• Rent/month: $719 for a studio, $626 per person in 2 bedroom, $539 per person in 3 bedroom, $482 per person in 4 bedroom
• Parking Spaces: 30 (all in use) and a bike shed
• Shared laundry, garden
• 2 entrances
• Favorite places for conversation: common room, group-reserve room, BSC events
• Challenges: noisy people on Telegraph on weekend nights, interlocking apartments with thin walls, lack of familiarity between residents, safety concerns

Neighborhood:

Rochdale is located in a flat area of the city, a short walk down Telegraph from UC Berkeley campus. The land is owned by the University and leased by the Berkeley Student Co-op non-profit. They renew the lease every ten years. Rochdale has a pretty good relationship with the University and the UCPD. The location is not without its challenges. On the weekend, pedestrians on their way between fraternity houses and bars are too loud for residents who are trying to sleep. The kids at the neighboring schools can also be loud during recess (Oscar was less concerned with this noise). Bikes and laptops were stolen when doors were left unlocked. Homeless people sometimes come into the courtyard and are asked to leave. If a fight breaks out, the UCPD are called.

Outdoor space:

Although Rochdale has quite a bit of outdoor space compared to other Berkeley Student Co-ops, Oscar perceived there to be very little outdoor space. The backyard is home to the “Butterfly garden” that grows less than 1% of the food consumed by the residents. Residents put in 8 hours of work shift toward the garden or other home improvement projects per semester. They used to play a bit of basketball on the court and soccer on the field but that slower down a bit recently. The interior courtyard has seen a few parties over the years, but is primarily a place where residents pass one another as they come and go. Some of the top floor apartments have double-loaded corridors that are open to the weather. These outdoor spaces occasionally host parties that are not well attended and usually get shut down.

Oscar mentioned three different zones where parties are hosted: “the heights”, “the flats”, and a few apartments in building E where some members of the student group “Hermanos Unidos” reside. “The flats” are at ground level and “the heights” are above ground level (the parking garage runs underneath building B). Building C, D, and E are commonly thought to be the noisier buildings.

Common Space:

The most active common spaces are the laundry room, the office, and the common room/pool table room. The common room is used for social events and for making important group decisions every-other-Monday during council meetings. The hot tub was out of order and Oscar told me the computer room was rarely utilized. During my visit, a few residents chatted in the laundry room while they waited on their clothes, residents popped in and out of the office to talk to the amicable staff person, and a study group met up in the common room. Unwanted items are placed in the “free pile” in the laundry room where people meet and fuel midnight-laundry-conversations with vending machine snacks.

Residences:

A variety of apartment configurations make up the 6 buildings. One of the primary arrangements is illustrated below:

The 4 bedroom apartments (yellow & white) interlock with one another so that the upstairs of one apartment is directly above the neighboring apartment. This diagrammatic section illustrates the arrangement:

Oscar lived in one of these interlocking apartments and disliked the design because he was kept awake by the noise of his neighbors moving about their daily tasks. The bedrooms of one apartment are above the living room of the neighboring apartment and vice-versa; there is basically no acoustic privacy between neighbors because the walls are very thin. His apartment was equipped with a stovetop, oven, refrigerator, and freezer. The refrigerators are replaced regularly and work well. Oscar would have liked another half-bath downstairs, a bit more space in general, and thicker walls. He suggested they take down the walls between the living areas so neighbors could get to know each other better.

The hallways are dimly lit and often smell strongly of whatever is being cooked in the apartments.

Shared amenities:

• Common room/game room (couches, pool table, foosball, air hockey)
• Office (considered part of the common space)
• Hot tub (not in service usually)
• Laundry room: 6 commercial washers, 6 commercial dryers
• Organic “Butterfly Garden”
• Computer room with printing (computers are old, rarely use and the printer rarely has toner)

Energy/waste:

During the 2010-2011 school year Rochdale used:

Electricity: ~30,000 and 40,000 kWh/month (winter) & slightly less over summer

Natural gas: ~3,900 therms/month (winter) & ~1,000 therms/month (summer)

Water: ~350 CCF/month (winter) & ~625 therms/month (summer)

Oscar estimated ~50% of apartments use the optional recycling/compost bins

Rochdale vs. Fenwick/student co-op houses:

Many students prefer the Rochdale apartments over the neighboring co-operative apartment, Fenwick. Although Fenwick is much newer, the apartments have larger common living areas, the hot tub is usually functioning and clean, it is more expensive.

Oscar told me what he liked about co-operative houses: eventually you run into housemates getting food or going to the bathroom, they are more cooperative, people hang out in the kitchen, and food is shared. He found the co-op apartments to be attractive because people tend to be more on their own, they are considered cleaner, there is no public association with drug use, there is a greater diversity in culture, and there is more time to “chill” alone. He compared the layout to a dorm.

When Oscar was the President of Rochdale, he knew around 20-30% of the residents by name. Most residents on the same floor are usually at least acquainted. Oscar mentioned that there used to be a central kitchen and he would like to see it come back or have at least a couple communal dinners each week. Without a central kitchen, it is easy to go long periods of time without seeing a friend and it takes a bit of effort to be an active member of the community.

Safety:

16 security cameras were installed as a reaction to a sexual assault incident. Occasionally, someone from the street comes into the courtyard and refuses to leave or causes a fight and the UCPD is called. Those looking for cans don’t cause any trouble and the Rochdale staff help them.

Conclusions:

For most residents, the Rochdale Village co-operative apartment functions like any other apartment complex. The key points of distinction are the laundry room, the office, and the common room where residents have the opportunity to get to know another. Some become involved in the biweekly meetings and social events, but the large majority come and go with a high level of anonymity, passing each other in the courtyard space as strangers. Many co-opers come to Rochdale to “retire” when they want more time on their own and the anonymity works for them.

Acoustic privacy is, in fact, the primary concern of residents. Those living in the interlocking apartments broadcast their every movement through the thin walls and into the ears of their neighbors. Oscar’s idea to take down the walls between the two living rooms of the apartments is interesting because it would give the residents more opportunity to communicate about when they need quiet to sleep or study.

“The flats” and “the heights” are valuable spaces for hosting parties. They are easy to find and open out to the backyard space. The low walls around the entrances provide subtle boundaries that serve as places to lean and converse when the weather is fair.

259 people is a very large co-op. In cohousing, the Danes never built a community for more than 50 adults⁴. Through trial and error, they discovered that 20-50 people is optimum. 259 people may be too many people for a single tight knit co-operative community. A single centralized kitchen and/or shared meals may not be an effective community building strategy for Rochdale. Perhaps several (5-13) larger kitchens throughout the complex would be a more effective design: providing the opportunity for residents to get to know one another a bit better and moving some of the noise out of the individual apartments where people sleep and study. Perhaps residents would be less worried about cooking aromas in the hallways if they could take part in the making and eating of a shared meal.

¹”Berkeley Student Cooperative.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundations, Inc.. 18 Jan 2012. Web. 30 Jan 2012.

²”Rochdale Principles.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundations, Inc.. 28 Jan 2012. Web. 30 Jan 2012.

³”History of the BSC.” Berkeley Student Cooperative. 30 Jan 2012.

⁴McCamant, Kathryn and Charles Durrett. Creating Cohousing: Building Sustainable Communities. New Society Publishers, 2011.

Lothlorien & the limits of sustainability

Lothlorien

Berkeley, California

North House with solar hot water panels, viewed from South House

As the sole vegetarian house in the 1300 member Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC), Lothlorien became the de facto eco-theme house.  Elves, as residents of Lothlorien are called, are prominent at the forefront of the green movement - just in my four years there, we passed a campus referendum to create $100,000 of funding a year for green initiatives at UC Berkeley, started a collective grocery store, and participated in tree sits.  Many residents study Conservation and Resource Studies or other green-aligned fields. 

However, our utility bills, while low, were not always at the per capita bottom among the 20 BSC co-ops.  A look at Lothlorien offers some insights on the unique challenges that co-ops face in environmental performance. 

Lothlorien facts

Type: Student housing, part of larger nonprofit (Berkeley Student Cooperative)

Built in: North House: late 1800s.  South House: early 1900s. 

Became co-op in 1975

Building type: Two 3-story walkup buildings with basements

Originally built as single family houses, expanded in mid 20^th century for use as sororities and religious organization. 

Occupants: 57 (28-29 in each building)

Room mix: 15 singles (88-124 sf), 14 doubles (126-247 sf), 2 triples (233 & 450sf), 2 quads (433 & 450sf)

Restrooms: Mix of shared and private.  6 showers, 8 toilets.

Parking: 3 spaces (1 in use)

Transportation

Despite being located on a steep hill with 20% grades, many elves bike.  For 57 residents, there are typically 30-40 bikes parked in and around Loth, including three shared house bikes.  Indoor storage is limited to 15 spaces in a basement, though many people prefer to park outdoors or on the street since accessing the basement requires negotiating stairs.  Theft and damage from overcrowded parking are persistent issues.  While there is a two-car garage at street level, that space is presently used as an art studio. 

Covered outdoor bike parking

With the UC Berkeley campus only three blocks away, most residents walk or bike to class.  However, 10-20% kept cars for work, school (a few were enrolled at other colleges), or weekend trips.  Cars are also used for trips to the farmers’ market.  With the one parking space reserved for loading and unloading, most residents got residential parking permits to enable them to park for more than 2 hours in the neighborhood.  There was one case of someone who had difficulty getting a permit and had to park fifteen blocks south and take a bus to her car. 

Site

Lothlorien consists of two buildings on adjacent lots.  Each lot is roughly 6,000 square feet, with the buildings covering 1/3^rd of the land.  Like the rest of the block in its fairly dense neighborhood, both buildings are 3-story wood frame houses.  A small garden is located on the sunny southwest side, with fruit trees, berry bushes, and some food crops.  It produces less than 1% of the co-op’s food.  The rest of the outdoor space, too shady for farming, is used as living space.  Livestock raising is impossible, with all outdoor space too close to neighbors or the street.  Residents interested in food production use a community garden about 15 blocks away. 

Water

Rainwater catchment requires huge amounts of storage in the Bay Area, where winters and spring are wet and summers and fall completely dry.  Meanwhile, building codes and the challenge of training new residents and guests prevents the use of graywater.  Instead, water conservation focuses on bathrooms, which are equipped with low-flow toilets (1.6 gpf), sink aerators (0.5 gpm) and showers (1.5 gpm).  To accommodate those who like luxurious showers, two of the eight showers remain equipped with moderate-flow (2.5 gpm) heads. 

Energy

The two-building layout makes keeping warm difficult.  First, the exterior doors are opened several hundred times a day by residents traveling between common spaces.  Often doors are simply propped open. 

Second, while South House stays warm in the winter from kitchen heat, North House requires extensive heating.  Room or zone heating controllability is limited.  While residents can turn water flow to their radiator on or off, there are no intermediate settings.  Getting north facing rooms warm in the winter requires either heating the rest of the house more than necessary, or using inefficient electric space heaters.  Air conditioning is not needed or provided. 

Presently Lothlorien uses 125 kWh of electricity per day, just over 2 kWh per person.  Though North and South House have equal numbers of residents and amounts of common space, South House uses 100 kWh while North House gets by with 25 kWh.  South House has the laundry room, the server closet, and most importantly, the kitchen and its four commercial refrigerators and one commercial freezer.  Now that lighting is all compact fluorescent and computers are laptops, refrigeration accounts for the bulk of the load – around 60 kWh a day.  The fridges’ location in the hot kitchen adds to the energy use.  Also, with 80 people (residents plus boarders) using the kitchen, much energy is lost when doors are left open while searching for food.  Models with glass doors may be able to mitigate this. 

The second largest user of electricity is the hot tub.  It consumes 20 kWh a day, leading to the saying, “Having a hot tub is like having another house”. 

Solar panels were installed on the roof of South House in 2010.  Occupying 3/4 of the roof (the rest is used for solar hot water), these panels produce nearly all of the electricity needed during summer afternoon peak hours when rates are 300% higher than normal. 

Alter Systems technicians installing panels in September 2010.

Solar PV facts

Type: Grid tied

Cost: $40,000 (Equipment $26k, installation $9k, partial re-roof $5k)

Rated Output: 7.9 kW

Area: 500 sf (33 x CEEG 240W modules)

Array Tilt: 20 degrees

Array Azimuth: 130 degrees (close to due southeast)

Power generated: 3-28 kWh per day in winter, 40-55 kWh in summer

Estimated payback time: 16 years

Building Utilization

Since kitchens, bathrooms, and living spaces are shared, large co-ops like Lothlorien are able to devote around 20% of space to personal bedrooms.  In contrast, apartment buildings can only do 10-15%.  This allows for 57 residents in 26,000 square feet – one per 450 sf.  This includes several fairly generous rooms, a natural result of the idiosyncrasies of converting mansions into shared housing.  

Retrofitting

One of the flip sides to reusing century-old houses is the need to do earthquake retrofitting.  Large common rooms on the ground floors create a vulnerable soft story condition.  North House was retrofitted in 2009 at the cost of $537,000 ($19,000 per resident), with the cost paid for by a 40-year bond backed the co-op’s properties (comparable to mortgaging the house).  This retrofit consisted of stripping the first floor and basement walls down to the studs and reinforcing them with plywood shear walls.  A new foundation and anchoring was also added – the building didn’t have much of one before, having been moved by oxen to its present location circa 1900.  Insulation was also added. 

The two house setup of Lothlorien allowed normal operations during the three months of construction, with the other building fully open.  South House retrofit is expected to cost $600,000 ($21,000 per resident) and will be similar to North House, with the addition of exterior steel moment frames around large windows. 

Though earthquake-proof, the Treehouse also needed retrofitting.  Fifteen years after its construction, the redwood it was built around had grown wider.  The tension ring clamping the treehouse to the trunk was now choking the tree.  This retrofit involved bolting wooden support brackets under the treehouse.  It cost around $700 in materials, and took five residents, some with extensive rock climbing experience and gear, a couple of weekends to complete. 

Access

In addition to environmental and structural challenges, Lothlorien also faces accessibility challenges.  Those in wheelchairs can only enter South House and only via a back door, as the front sits 20 steps up from the street.  Once inside, there are no accessible bathrooms.  Those with invisible disabilities needing quiet also face difficulties due to thin uninsulated walls. 

Economic access also poses challenges.  Earthquake retrofitting accounts for 20% of the co-op’s budget.  Also, since Lothlorien is located in a relatively expensive neighborhood and is distant to transit, most alumni move 20 blocks southwest down the hill to the Ashby BART area after graduation. 

Looking back at my time at Loth, it’s easy to romanticize its image as one of perfection.  In actuality greater heights in co-opitecture can be achieved.  We will look at what shape that might take in a later section.

References:

Firsthand experience, field measurement and data monitoring.