Below are some notes on a new affordable housing concept that I have designed.
If someone wants to buy a fairly expensive home, they need to be on a high income.
In some countries on a $400,000 home, they would need to outlay $30,000 just for stamp duty, legal fees and loan establishment fees.
They would also need to find a $40,000 deposit on the house.
So they need $70,000 to start off. Then on a 30-year loan at 7 per cent interest, you need to pay $600 per week in repayments.
There are a few ongoing worries, even if you can cope so far with those commitments. Interest rates (which at one time were mostly at a fixed rate for the life of residential loans, but now can rise at any time according to the whim of bankers or whoever) might rise and you could be paying another one or two hundred dollars a week in interest that you never expected to be paying.
As well your relationship with your partner if you have one, could break down, and you might have to find all the money for repayments yourself, while trying to pay for your car and living expenses also.
Then of course you might lose your job and have much reduced income . Then the property market might collapse and your house might be only worth $200,000, yet you would still be required to pay off the original purchase price of the Home.
A nightmare in the making.
How much better to have as an option, buying a very nice two story Terrace home overlooking a sporting oval, for maybe less than $200,000, with endless free side benefits thrown in ?
Easy to do if new estates are built on selected crown land allotments (or what is presently Government owned land) and the land is 'sold' on long term lease, making the land component virtually free.
A nice safe place (the Oval) for kids to play on and learn sporting skills, free community child care provided in the complex, mostly no need to have a car, because almost everything is on-site in terms of shopping and entertainment needs.
Minimal costs for Electricity and Gas , as the complex would be mostly run on solar power and collected methane gases, and a lot of the adjoining land, where not designated as parkland, would produce almost free vegetables etc in intensive farming allotments.
The Basic multi-purpose residential / leisure complex, consists of 100 adjoining terrace homes around a sporting arena.
The answer to almost all the housing and social needs of the less well off half of the population.
An important issue is that a lot of cheap housing might undermine existing housing values, but if the purchase or rental of these units is restricted to lower income people, who would not normally be able to afford to buy the present housing that is available, then these developments would actually stimulate the economy and create many Jobs as well as providing a lot of much needed affordable housing for lower income people. So it is good news all round.
We are all brought up to think of making money, even if it means putting great stress on other people in financial terms.
The driving force in Business is often maximizing profits at all times, even if that means a lot of small people getting crushed.
With the residential/ leisure complex, we turn that kind of thinking on its head, and we do our best to make everything as cheap as possible for the residents. Unreasonable profit making would be discouraged.
An affordable high quality of life for the residents is the main objective.
People tend to have a new view of the world when their financial problems are solved and they don't have to worry about the future or paying bills.
Someone once said: "Mankind is born free, but is everywhere in chains "
Financial chains.
What was being suggested was that for ordinary (non wealthy) people the daily grind of trying to make ends meet can destroy their lives. They are often in financial chains.
It is our intention in the residential/leisure complexes, to break those chains forever, and allow people to live very cheaply in high quality accommodation, with the best leisure, sporting and entertainment facilities imaginable.
There are three basic developments.
One is simply 100 adjoining two story Terrace homes around a sporting arena.
This can be built almost anywhere including in remote Aboriginal regions in Australia and in desert areas everywhere ( like for instance in Darfur where large numbers of people are homeless and living together in tents etc.
These people have two things going for them.
One is that they can do a lot of construction work for their own homes without salaries, and secondly they can make their homes mostly out of Mud brick walls.
All they need is a fair amount of water to be flown in by helicopter to make the mud walls of this modern new development.
When mud walls are in place - and protected from rain by paint etc, they eventually become as hard as brick walls.
In some countries like for instance Iran, large mud brick homes have stood for centuries.
So by combining free building material (mud) with a mostly free workforce - very impressive housing developments could be built in areas which are in serious need of good accommodation.
In City areas Concrete walls would be the main construction option.
Always building around sporting arenas.
The Ovals are the main recreational facility for the residents and their children. as well as providing a nice view of green grass from the homes surrounding the Ovals
Here are some photos of the kind of developments we have in mind.
This is an outside view of the 100 adjoining units around an oval option
