By Adele Peters | Fast Company
If you live in the Bay Area, a new coop wants to lease your backyard for the next 99 years. The startup, called Oby (“our backyard”), a spinoff of a company called CoEverything, is taking a new approach to affordable housing: It finds homeowners who are willing to share their backyards, then builds a tiny backyard house, which it rent at rates well below market rate. By making an agreement that lasts even when the main house on the property is later sold, the business model is designed to help create a long-term solution to the area’s housing crisis.
