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An EcoVillage is a major type of sustainable intentional community: “an urban or rural community of people, who strive to integrate a supportive social environment with a low-impact way of life … (by using) various aspects of ecological design, Permaculture®, ecological building, green production, alternative energy, community building practices, and much more.”

 

“A sustainable society is one that can persist over generations, one that is far-seeing enough, flexible enough and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or its social systems of support” (Meadows 1992).

Some EcoVillages also have cohousing, that intends a closely-shared neighbourhood, eg Loudoun, Ithaca, Munksøgård, Dulaiwurrong.

EcoVillages and other models

History of EcoVillages
The roots of modern EcoVillages include traditional rural hamlets and a spectrum of non-mainstream communal lifestyles such as Middle-Eastern settlements from Essene to kibbutzim; spiritual communities (monasteries, ashrams); 18-19thC utopians; hippie communes; housing co-ops and Cohousing (Dawson 2006:11-20). The common thread is co-operative lifestyle, unusual in developed countries.

Hildur Jackson (Denmark) was instrumental in manifesting both Cohousing (late 1970s-early 1980s) and EcoVillages (concept building with Norwegian Erik Damman & 100 grass roots movements ~ 1980s) (Jackson & Svensson 2002: 9-12). Global EcoVillage Network.

Modern EcoVillages responded post World War II to a tangibly falling quality of life, resource depletion, environmental degradation and community alienation through globalising economic policies (Dawson 2006: 12).

Australasian ‘alternative lifestyle’
Australian non-indigenous collective living started with our 19th Century pioneers (Metcalf, 1995). We have welcomed religious communities and variably tolerated 1960s-70s ‘alternative lifestyle’ co-ops and communes. Northern NSW (Nimbin), Queensland (Maleny) and New Zealand are now setting examples for mainstream, especially in Permaculture® communities (eg Jarlanbah Permaculture® Hamlet, Crystal Waters, Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood).

EcoVillage locations
Most are rural or rural fringe, but LA Ecovillage (LAEV, 1993) started by redlining a low-income Los Angeles neighbourhood, acquired a central building, then doorknocked community, entraining local authorities to support a fully featured urban EcoVillage, “Modelling a new way to use a city”. This now includes a Community Land Trust and Limited Equity Co-op with 46 private & two common units. Gildea Resource Centre strengthens existing local EcoCommunity and income through nation-wide education about recycling.

EcoCities & intentional community
The EcoCities movement aims to demonstrate Urban Ecology at smaller scales, and gradually remodel the whole city into ecological health over a 50-100 year programme. Urban EcoVillages and Cohousing are potential components.

Experimental housing
Sustainability professionals call for demonstration projects. Denmark subsidises and publicises experimental projects and technologies and provides land for experimental housing (eg Torup EcoVillage).

Perks & van Vliet’s (1993:21) findings (researching 30 Scandinavian sustainable community projects of all types) included that their success directly resulted from innovative municipal leadership, very early goal-clarification (ecological, social), early user and all stakeholder inclusion in planning, specifying performance goals at all stages from macro urban design and landscape ecology to lot design, housing form & layout, internal design and technologies, even spatial adaptability. They acknowledged new stewardship behaviours were needed of householders.

An ecological planning approach needs site-specific thinking - thus is not suited to a reproducible, mechanistically applied or generalised standard of planning procedures. Fostering an experimental planning approach is achievable when adapting development to a locality. Attention starts with the natural resources and ecological régime of the site, then integrates infrastructure and buildings to the site (no clearance or ‘rape & pillage’), designing in closed material and energy loops locally and globally – using soft engineering.

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EcoVillage elements

Integrative models
A mental model is useful for chunking complex information and as a checklist. Gilman’s EcoVillage Challenge Model is widely used for EcoVillages and sustainable communities:

A human scale, full-featured settlement, in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world, in a way that is supportive of healthy human development and can be successfully continued into the indefinite future (Context Institute 1991: 7).

DOWNLOAD A Paper on EcoVillage characteristics, challenges and guidelines extends this and the material below, adding examples and other resources. 

Gilman’s Challenge Model Diagram: Challenges for EcoVillages with added examples (Context Institute 1991)

Gaia Trust/Global EcoVillage Network have a new ‘4 Keys Model’ of Elements of Ecovillage Living. See also Jackson & Svennson’s (2002).

Community size
EcoVillages tend to be larger than other types of intentional community, some very large (eg Auroville India 1300). 500 people is seen as a maximum, but social clustering happens if not physically designed.

Community assets & facilities
These vary widely. Top early priority is a comfortable meeting place.
EcoVillages may want shop fronts, social centre(s), coffee shop, library, training facilities, office, workshop, natural earth burial etc.

EcoVillage facilities

(L) Amphitheatre: Aldinga Arts-EcoVillage SA (R) Natural living, natural death: Jarlanbah NSW

‘Nature Sanctuary’: external & internal views: Findhorn UK

 

(L) ‘Village Heart’: Aldinga’s community-built pizza oven (R)Café & book exchange: Blå Kilde Gårde, Denmark

Sustainability strategies: built environment
The Urban Ecology approach to sustainable development differs from and exceeds Australian standards. van Vliet’s University of Manitoba website describes ECD Design Features and several case studies

DOWNLOAD Links list for the design site.

Biosystem
Site choice starts with solar aspect, terrain, wind and soil. On large parcels, self-sufficiency participates in a ‘working landscape’, recycling organic wastes and linking water, energy and food production. Initially Google-Mapping and ground-truthing the land helps understand and honour the ecosystem.

Consider Permaculture®® design and Ecomapping® your site. (+links to each of these)

Soft engineering in ecological design
Simultaneously saving costs, Permaculture®® and/or urban or landscape architect designers involved early, can modify hard infrastructure with soft engineering such as swales, grass drains and permeable surfaces. Buildings and landscape can be designed as a system unit, and land minimally disturbed.

Soft engineering’
Rip-rap (or grass) drains, soft edges, absorptive surfaces
Above-ground mounds
Recycled elements (historic cobbles)

Economic System    
To date in Australia, many EcoVillages have underemphasised or been naïve about EcoVillage enterprise. Unnecessary poverty is a possibility.

Intentional Community has human diversity and great potential synergy available for collective economic activity, including local enterprise and LETS systems.

Community businesses
Long-established EcoVillages have many kinds of enterprises, (eg Svanholm organic farm) or consultancies, eco-education and various home businesses (eg Crystal Waters has Permaculture® education and >150 businesses.

Rental accommodation and education centres are common globally, underscoring the general goal of demonstrating eco-living. Outputs include farm produce, tree crops, arts & crafts and complementary health.

Small farming enterprises on community land and semi-self sufficiency in food are common; some have CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) systems.  

‘Feed ourselves by 2020’
“The Farm will contribute to feeding the village with nourishing organic food by 2020. We will achieve this by being an economically viable demonstration site of sustainable land uses based on Permaculture® principles. The Farm is a mixed enterprise organic food production system providing opportunities for villagers. It is aesthetically pleasing food forest linking to residential areas and a place for environmental education that is powered by renewable energy.”

Strategic Mission for Aldinga Arts-EcoVillage Farm

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Soft structures

Gilman’s diagram above mentions ‘glue’ and governance. EcoVillages are rich in process, invisible structure and surprise.

As a society we are accustomed to individualism and private activities. Most of us need training in meeting procedure, collective decision making and mature approaches to dispute management, questioning ‘How will we run our lives as a community?’

Developers must be aware of such issues, and facilitate these social underpinnings, or the community may later be endangered.

Surveys
Many communities start with a ‘fishing expedition’: a market or start-up survey. Download

Early Process Essentials
Vision (future dream) and Mission (the how) are Statements of Intention.
They express the primary purpose.

Once declared, they can entrain major decisions like a compass in times of uncertainty. They need to remain steady until after community completion, and immediately clear to all newcomers, helping select the right people. 

VISIONS, MISSIONS ~ EXAMPLES FROM AUSTRALIAN ECOVILLAGES
“there’s life … and there’s living”. “Landmatters’ goal is to preserve and enhance the current exquisite beauty of the site, improve its biodiversity, and nurture the regeneration of the land into a leading example of sustainable community living. Ecovillage at Currumbin Q.

“Taking care of the Earth, taking care of people, living creatively … together!” Aldinga Arts-EcoVillage SA.

“The community vision has evolved from two fundamental values; The desire to live in ‘Co-operative Community’ and to live a ‘Sustainable Lifestyle’, including sustainable living practices, through energy efficient building and community action.  This village will be a living demonstration of the powerful impact that a sustainable community lifestyle has on the human spirit and in supporting a healthier planet” Dulaiwurrong, Eltham Vic.

“A vibrant village where community flourishes, in which every person is supported and contributes in balance with a sustainable ecological ethic” SomerVille  WA.

Goals & values clarification: good ideas early
For agreed values, the ‘golden rule’ (do as you would be done by) is a good start.
People often have one priority eg ‘community’, ‘eco’, ‘arts’, ‘nice place to live’. This can undermine relationships in a busy community. A comprehensive induction package and lots of learning and sharing opportunities are recommended.

See Fickeisen’s “Skills for Living Together” on governance and people skills.

Resident design inputs & ‘glue’ building
Starting with design charrettes, contribution teaches co-creation, mutual respect and accommodation, joint decision making and problem solving, sharing with goodwill – is this for me? It takes skilful attraction to gather people prior to occupancy: the developer skill lies in choosing what to do professionally and fast, and where to save using community labour (eg plantings, finishes, social area design, paving, weeding, tours).

The developer of Ecovillage at Currumbin has skilfully involved residents while tightly managing the commercial aspects. 

Greenhouse (Vic) is consciously balancing heart and head in professional teams, to facilitate wide uptake of intentional community: they are completing Dulaiwurrong and progressing Bunjil.

Commitment
 

“Commitment of the heart is a necessary - nearly sufficient - condition for community building. People who are seriously committed to living together in community seem to rise to the challenges of differing goals, values, and strategies. There are some tools and skills that help develop community - but the best of them are of little use without that underlying commitment.” Fickeisen 1991.

Traditional communities build trust by slow processes that commit the heart (or motivate escape). Eventually, commitment must be tested against means. Co-op structures and lease-purchase contracts with clear exits have advantages – poor fit or non-complying purchasers can depart gracefully with a refund.

 

Imposition of 2-year building covenants completes faster but will impair social equity. Affordable housing or co-op funding is sometimes available (eg Pinakarri).

Legal structures
Governance Framework
By-laws are usually required for legal structures, and should support the Vision. The need to pre-empt trouble by embedding decision and dispute strategies early, is universally recognised.
 

Big teeth
Conflict management requires community maturity: one hopes for prevention by inclusive decision-making processes. An external fall-back (eg mediator or employed manager) may be helpful for powerful issues like money eg levies or rent arrears. But externally imposed processes may lack justice and be over-zealous.

Companion animals commonly create conflict in EcoVillages. One community avoided dealing with a large number of dogs-at-large infringing by-laws, after repeated requests and complaints. Eventually the Body Corporate gave offenders a ‘sort-by’ date, after which the Council dog catcher would be invited in. This is an ongoing sensitivity: many EcoVillages ban dogs and cats outright, to protect wildlife and impact on neighbours. To others they are truly family.

Findhorn has an obligatory weekly ‘attunement’ meeting: a preventive measure.

The Vårst (‘Windmill’) Cohousing community in Denmark (16 houses) has a semi-humorously elected position of a ‘Rappenskralde’ (scolder/tough person) whose authority everyone agrees to respect.

Filming over 300 communities, the late Geoph Kozeny noted that clarity, early adoption and commitment to implementation matter more than structures chosen.

‘Sociocracy’ (decision-by-consent) is attracting EcoVillage interest (Buck & Villines (2007). See examples at Ecovillage at Loudoun.

Fun
One of the best aspects of living in community is the ease of having good times together. Aldinga Arts-EcoVillage runs popular seasonal markets, contributes to local arts and other events. There is an amphitheatre and the pizza oven runs hot.

 

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New opportunities for developers

At last: sustainability!
The ‘mainstream’ world is finally waking up. Barriers are dissolving. The timing is right. It pays to innovate.

Corbett’s Village Homes and other US green developments long ago proved more popular, profitable, marketable and higher resale value than standard development (Wilson et al, 1998).

EcoVillages represent the more radical shift we need to make
Where Cohousing is closer socially, EcoVillages are more individualistic - unless also a Cohousing, houses are individually designed– possibly more appealing to mainstream Australia. However co-ordinated design and building could save significant resources - a Cohousing approach.

EcoVillages seek relative self-sufficiency, resource-security and lower running costs by low energy design, minimising transport, dematerialisation, food production, capturing waste resources and much more.

Developers are responding
 

"Our company has community and sustainability as its core. It is our company vision that through community based living we can create models which demonstrate sustainable lifestyles on this planet.  This project represents a great opportunity for our company to demonstrate what is truly possible when people live together in a co-operative community.

 

The project team brings together some of the most experienced consultants and planners who have successfully completed sustainable projects over many years.  We have struck a great balance between young creative talent and the more experienced and pragmatic style of consultant.  As a team we are delighted to be part of this exciting and innovative project."

Greenhouse, Melbourne
Convenors of Dulaiwurrong (Eltham) & Bunjil (Yarra Valley)(in progress)

A small band of developers, architects and Permaculture® consultants are running with this challenge, experiencing the same curious interest as the more counter-cultural originals. Multi-award winning EcoVillage at Currumbin has been visited by every major estate developer in the country. They have set up an education centre in their on-site eco-restored sales office.

It is unlikely that mainstream purchasers would appreciate the struggle and delays tolerated by the visionary: little support and active resistance from planning, finance and utilities gatekeepers, ‘NIMBY’ (not in my back yard) attitudes from neighbours; decade-plus land searches, inexperienced people learning by doing, trial and error, cash flow crises and the slowness of self-build. No wonder the market has been small and esoteric.

How much better could a developer do this?

What are they really building?
Some traditional EcoVillages question the authenticity of developer-led projects, concerned that important processes are being short-cut, with uncertain impact on community glue, long-term ecological sustainability and commitment to localisation. Others welcome access to land, finance, efficiency and know-how. A middle ground is emerging.

We are used to Strata Title, and most States now have Community Title. Co-ops with land trusts are less explored but will find their place.

Funding
Start-up funding for non-ordinary projects needs creativity. Greenedge invented Greenedge Ethical Investments Ltd recently. They previously analysed all SomerVille’s functional needs, and created enterprises to meet each. Their land investment programme is helping establish the village.

Sweden was pioneering Green Loans in 1993  (Perks & van Vliet, 1993: 134)

Transitioning
MFP-Australia’s New Haven project (1990s) ‘broke in’ the building industry.
MFP’s grandchild, Lochiel Park SA, and VicUrban’s Bonbeach: benchmarked ESD estates, include community sustainability strategies.

Calthorpe & Van der Ryn’s New Urbanism – the original intention – could still be implemented (Van der Ryn & Calthorpe, 1991).

Look before you leap!
Visit communities: you will immediately see where a professional developer could be more efficient and cost-effective. Watch videos. Research weblinks.

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Key Issues

Benefits

Mind change: until recently, ESD and ECD have been seen to have cost, lifestyle and other benefits for occupants, but the development industry has mainly been driven by the profit motive. Most did not believe there to be a serious ecological problem, and has not been willing to invest in strategies that would benefit the user but not themselves (such as passive solar considerations in site design or preservation of local biodiversity). Many local and State Government planners and land banking entities have had this awareness at least since the United Nations Conference on Environment & Development (UNCED, 1992), and the LA21 movement following, but have had difficulty implementing anything radical. see Glossary on MFP and technopoles.

The context: is now rapidly shifting with climate change, pollution and biodiversity awareness, an ageing population and increasing social differentiation as prosperity contracts with increases in cost of living. Developers and consultant groups are beginning to see advantages in implementing Ecovillages and other co-operative lifestyle developments. Obligatory standards are seeing the removal of the dysbenefit formerly constraining the industry. With rising fuel and other prices, the market will soon be calling for more compact, transit oriented, socially convenient and solar sited and designed buildings. The phenomenal success of the Ecovillage at Currumbin attests to these trends.

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Risks

Four main risks may threaten the whole project:

1. not finding your community in time,
2. interpersonal conflict due to poor people skills or inadequate community governance processes,
3. delays in the approval process related to inexperience or old-fashioned attitudes; and
4. funding refusal by orthodox lending institutions.

Other risks include a vexatious single person blocking a key community decision under the Community Titles Act, cost over-runs (due to unfamiliarity with process and experimentally based development), and inexperienced tradesmen.

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Savings

The development scene is about to change radically with the introduction of carbon trading and more generous rebates for water-saving strategies or renewable energy installations. This will potentially apply to many strategies sought by eco-communities. Businesses are now emerging that combine government rebates with the bulk purchase of solar technology to provide extremely cheap solar arrays for the consumer and carbon credits for themselves.

Major savings come from avoidance of site clearance fees, not having to deposit millions for head works on Community Title projects and the soft engineering approaches that avoid kerb & gutter, have soft-edge roads, grass drainage, rip-rap stormwater overflows and earth berm and swale construction.

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Costs

While good design costs no more, eco-technologies increase the cost by 10-20%. Thermal mass is the main cost, and problematic as it often means concrete, which raises costs and releases large quantities of CO₂. Magnesium cement is CO₂ neutral. Aldinga Arts-EcoVillage encourages ‘inside-out’ housing, which is passive solar designed and carries the thermal mass inside, with lightweight materials outside. This offsets the increased initial cost with fuel savings indefinitely.

Many EcoVillage residents prefer earth and straw technologies. If self-build or made, these can be cheaper, but if build by tradespeople, the costs are equivalent to or greater than standard materials.

These costs can be offset by savings in the site preparation area through soft engineering and conserving vegetation. Further cost reductions can come from working with the residents, especially regarding landscaping, planting, finishing and other tedious tasks.

Currumbin EcoVillage has modelled a combination of standard developer strategies such as 2-year covenants and staged releases along with a very high standard in all six EnviroDevelopment sustainability categories. Housing, as in most standard EcoVillages, is built singly and paid for by individual purchasers. It would make good sense to cut everyone’s costs and standardise or modularise the building designs and build them in clusters together.

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Barriers

Many industry professionals and developers complain that unacceptable delays occur in the approval process, especially where unusual elements are involved, where planners and other gatekeepers may be unfamiliar with the Community Title Act or with ESD ‘soft engineering’, concerned about some sustainability strategies, especially health-related such as composting toilets, new sewage treatment plant technologies, earth burial, wanting to cluster buildings of medium density small lots within large space, or worried that people who want to live cooperatively may be hippies. In many places there is no ‘one-stop shop’ for the approval process, requiring multiple applications. There is often a highly wasteful inability or unwillingness of infrastructure authorities to coordinate their standards or cooperate in their installation timetables, making common trenching difficult or impossible and wasting resources by digging up completed roads.

This suggests that a combination of risk mitigation, gatekeeper education, early and continuing inclusion of and relationship-building with local government planners as well as the users in the design process, and legislative or regulatory change, could be very helpful in improving affordability and streamlining approval, design and construction processes.

In its early days, Cohousing took from 2-5 years’ lead time, a daunting prospect. This was mainly due to rigid building codes and planning and zoning regulations. The EcoVillage story is similar, with stories in Australia of poor communities trying for up to 15 years to secure suitable land in competition with cashed-up developers, even before the planning stage. This should indicate a market advantage for a developer who already has suitable land. It would also help communities if State land bankers would keep this type of development in mind when zoning or otherwise assigning land use.

For community-driven projects, a good place to start is to listen carefully to the community and be prepared to explore issues together. Demonstration projects, partnerships and knowledge sharing have a clear role here and are slowly resulting in shorter turn-around times.

A frequent recommendation of entrants to the Jerrabomberra Valley (ACT) National Ideas Competition in 1994 was that planning should shift away from prescribed statutory standards and towards functional standards, leaving designers and developers free to decide how those functions would be achieved.

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Benchmarks

Perks & van Vliet’s 30-community study found ‘experimental planning’ in use: a type of urban planning based on system performance, not codes and standards (Not statutory). Because ecological planning must be site-specific and ecosystem-adapted, targets will be set but ability to achieve them is initially unknown. Targets, technical norms and implementation strategies emerge from the planning and design process, and both users and all stakeholders, LG officials, consultants, builders etc are included from the outset (Perks & van Vliet, 1993: 18-22).

Four conceptual performance frameworks were identified:

• ecological system,
• material & eco-tech aspects of built environment,
• common (shared) elements of lands spaces & buildings, and
• role expectations for individuals, households & community groups.

The roles are about meditative process and negotiation: site-situational, exploratory and participant-constrained, not set goals for people in the community, but innovative approaches aiming to achieve positive and satisfying personal and community development – and these are built into the plans as community intentions. The extent to which such system targets might become parametric (eg ‘50% affordable’ or ‘reduce energy consumption 30%’, is situation dependent).

A number of checklists are available for download above. Plus add the Global Ecovillage Network’s Community Sustainability Assessment.

In Australia, see UDIA's EnviroDevelopment

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Development phase actions

Feasibility

Because every EcoVillage is different, phase processes vary. Much is pre-feasibility and research based. Aldinga Arts-Ecovillage offers a good real case example.

Pre-Feasibility: recommended actions for project drivers

• Gain knowledge
  • Full intentional community bibliography
  • Full intentional community glossary
  • Full links list
• Visit functioning communities to gain a working knowledge of community and process aspects.
• Initial survey
  • construct, distribute, review & write up. DOWNLOAD EV Survey
• Advertise for community or plan to find land
• Define potential land
• Build enterprises - See SomerVille sites: www.greenedge.com.au; www.somervilleecovillage.com.au/
• Build relationships
  All kinds of stakeholders, especially community local & future, development approval gatekeepers
  Build research relationships with universities, CSIRO, consultants, etc.
• Find potential professional ‘team’
  Canvass a spectrum of knowledgeable or open-minded professionals for potential teamwork: eg landscape architect or urban designers, geotech/soils people knowledgeable about agriculture, intentional community consultants, social planners or community development facilitators, meeting facilitators, conflict mediators, experts in biodiversity, botany, zoology, hydrology.
• Seek allies, partners, funding, land
• Establish appropriate legal & governance structures
  DOWNLOAD IC Legal Structure Overview
• Recommended for collective ownership:
  • Fully informed purchasers
  • Ask for increasing levels of investment as process proceeds (tests motivation & reality check)
  • Fully informed purchasers, included early
  • Sign-off by purchasers receiving full information & understanding of existing by-laws, levies, community governance structures
  • Ensure these are clear, enforceable, fair
  • Formal induction process ongoing
  • Clear exit structures, non-punitive.

Feasibility

The feasibility stage will include a lot more negotiation than usual. Be clear about legal & planning constraints from the start. Relationship development with relevant approval gatekeepers is critical to success. Be aware of different angles and policies of different local government departments and slant applications to suit their objectives.
Start working on preliminary Master Plan early. Identify relevant Acts.

Flesh out with feedback from surveys.

Have good ballpark projection figures for financiers, as they will need convincing about non-standard development. Identify alternative sources of funding in case needed. Ask about green loans.

Land must be secured first to get feasibility right. Financial commitments and deposits help in trust are commonly implemented. This requires legal holding structures and contracts if not already available.

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Planning

Beginning development of design brief.

Get to know land in detail & in its ecological landscape & catchment context.

Inclusive aspects, general decisions as to how common land & existing buildings will be used, where common facilities will be and what type and early establishment of governance structures.

Good relations with neighbours and trust building are critical. Public meetings.
Set up history collecting system, photos, newsclips, video etc.

Governance system selected & in place.

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Design

Resident & stakeholder-inclusive design charrettes including bioregional integration, lot & neighbourhood layout, decide if clusters or Cohousing to be the pattern (recommended for cost savings if solely developer-driven), definition of private territories/common land, car management & road locations, pet management, sustainable land use, common facilities, passive & active solar & lot orientation, water management, sustainable & local materials, renewables & energy production, indigenous plantings, landscaping designed in & built together with buildings, farm areas/Permaculture®; provision for different age groups. Design in metrics if possible.

Set parameters for individual building design & overall Vision, Mission, visual themes, materials (by-laws).

Fully developed design brief presentation(s) to stakeholders. Budgets.

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Construction

Construction materials, designs & technology may be non-standard eg HDPE replacing PVC, mud landscaping infrastructure & buildings together.

Earthworks to avoid ‘rape & pillage’: conserve indigenous & protected vegetation (research first – this should come out in charrettes above); protection of waterways, dust control etc etc as per codes. May be more troublesome as EcoVillages may have special soil building materials in large quantity.

Road design as slow ways with pedestrian priority, will need signs.
Soft edge road designs mean land contours unusually relevant to road placement (erosion).

Common trenching.

Advanced IT provision important.

Sewage treatment plants (STP) & water capture system with dams commonly wanted.

Community may assist with plantings from now on. May have been seed collecting and tubing in advance, or developer should have had orders in. Local indigenous, food & useful plants, non weedy, plant list decided in advance.

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Lot Creation

Active community development. Ensure governance plan decided on and functioning.
Regular community meetings well enshrined.

Critical to have accurate & full information, preferably a package, and ensure sales agents well informed.

Induction package urgent.

STP commissioned prior to lot creation.

House construction: Approvals process with both Village by-laws critical & design standards and local government assessment. Compliance critical.

May include elements of self-build. Insurance issue if owner builder combined with professionals.

Provide sustainable resources & suppliers list to buyers. Used timber, old bricks, rammed earth, insulation, double glazing etc.

If possible, offer collective opportunities to purchase: eg slab pours, earth brick manufacture, rammed earth formwork, energy infrastructure, expensive materials – can offset higher startup costs & make it more affordable for your buyers.

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Completion

Ongoing training of residents for living in the community, eg running meetings, governance, nature of EcoVillages, other communities & visits, Permaculture® etc.

Set up metric systems for future reference.

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