Starting an ecovillage

[flaja]

I am hoping that sometime this coming winter or spring I will be a position where I can purchase some farmland that can be used as an eco-village. I have enough money to buy land now, but my mother is scheduled to have surgery this November and I cannot decide anything about land until she has recovered.

I need to start thinking about what requirements I should have for people that wish to join the eco-village. I am thinking about requiring a cash investment in the eco-village/farm infrastructure as well as requiring a certain number of days worth of labor before I give anyone a say in running the eco-village/farm or any ownership rights. But how much cash and how much labor should I require? I dont want to take advantage of anyone, but I also dont want to be taken advantage of by wasting time, effort and money on people that are unable or unwilling to make a commitment to the eco-village/farm. What would be reasonable amounts of money and labor to require?

 

[Marianne]

I see this is your first post, so welcome!

Tall order here, with lots of variables. Are you going to have a centralized bog type area that's planted for greywater, or a large greenhouse that everyone participates and shares food from? Or are these parcels of land and everyone is expected to deal with their own in one of several methods?

Dancing Rabbit is an ecovillage. Maybe you can visit them or contact them for some advice. http://www.dancingrabbit.org/

Another starting place might be http://gen.ecovillage.org/

I'm not aware of any ecovillage residents here on the forum (is there?), so we'd be guessing. Anyone else have some other ideas?

Best of luck!

 

[TanksHill]

The independent soul in me says get yourself moved in settled and set up first. I would not want to rely on others for my family's safety and security.

Especially people I don't know.

By the way, welcome.

G

 

[k15n1]

You'll have to charge enough that people will have to think twice about it befor committing.

I think you should have people provide references, too. At least 3. And a track record of gardening or other skill you need on the farm.

You'll need a contract and some legal advice. Not all lawyers will be able to help---get together some questions and make sure you have the right person before working on the contract. The lawyer needs to ALREADY have experience with land sharing and LLC-type contracts. Don't be afraid to pay for good legal advice. With this kind of investment, the cost of the lawyer will be small. Compared to potential legal costs of a bungled eco-village, a few hundred bucks up front is a good investment.

Also, you'll have to figure out insurance. My church has limited coverage to pay for medical transportation and prevents members from suing for additional damages.

How exciting! I'll be watching this thread to see how the story unfolds.

 

[flaja]

I see this is your first post, so welcome!

Tall order here, with lots of variables. Are you going to have a centralized bog type area that's planted for greywater, or a large greenhouse that everyone participates and shares food from? Or are these parcels of land and everyone is expected to deal with their own in one of several methods?

My goal will be to have the ecovillage serve as a research and education center that can promote ecologically sustainable food, energy and building technologies. I also want a group of people that will work together in that each person will have specific skills that the entire community can draw on. Eventually I want to have something of a living history museum that can demonstrate and educate people about the various technologies that lead to modern civilization.

Since I am not married and have no children and no family that will likely outlive me I would just as soon set up the ecovillage as a non-profit operation and pay everybody a salary (as opposed to dividends or profits) out of whatever revenue the ecovillage can generate.

 

[flaja]

The independent soul in me says get yourself moved in settled and set up first. I would not want to rely on others for my family's safety and security.

Especially people I don't know.

By the way, welcome.

G

My health will not permit me to do anything solely by myself. I have debilitating arthritis along with extreme high blood pressure and congestive heart failure due to a leaky aortic valve. I am hoping that getting out of Floridas constant heat and humidity while being more physically active and having ready access to organic food will help with my blood pressure. But I cannot do more than tend my home vegetable garden without having help with the physical labor.

 

[flaja]

You'll have to charge enough that people will have to think twice about it befor committing.

I think you should have people provide references, too. At least 3. And a track record of gardening or other skill you need on the farm.

You'll need a contract and some legal advice. Not all lawyers will be able to help---get together some questions and make sure you have the right person before working on the contract. The lawyer needs to ALREADY have experience with land sharing and LLC-type contracts. Don't be afraid to pay for good legal advice. With this kind of investment, the cost of the lawyer will be small. Compared to potential legal costs of a bungled eco-village, a few hundred bucks up front is a good investment.

Also, you'll have to figure out insurance. My church has limited coverage to pay for medical transportation and prevents members from suing for additional damages.

How exciting! I'll be watching this thread to see how the story unfolds.

Ive been online for over a year now looking for people that may be interested. So far Ive been contacted by people who tell me that what I want to do cannot be done with the money I have available- even when I havent told them how much money I have available.

A lot of people have been interested, but they all want a ready-made farm- or they want instant ownership rights even when they tell me they have no money to invest.

Ive lost count of the number of people that want to join- but not right now since they want to get their kids through school first or wait until they retire or they have a mortgage that is worth more than their house is etcetera, etcetera ad nauseum.

 

[Neko-chan]

...

 

[Marianne]

I have been thinking about all this. Not being able to do much in the way of physical labor is so limiting. If you found a piece of property that had outbuildings, something that could be converted into housing, that would be helpful. Dancing Rabbit scrounged for anything/everything. They converted a small grain bin into a 'house'. One floor with a sleeping loft, one small solar panel to power the entire thing. The bathroom was never shown, so I'm not sure what they did there. They also had a main building with a kitchen and big dining area for group meals, held meetings there, shared ideas, etc. They had one vehicle that they converted to run on used vegetable oil.

Consider a couple like minded managers to help you get stuff up and going, offer them free rent for their duties. You'll still be foreman of the crew and maintain ownership. All the hard work is going to be done up front. I have to admit, that as much as I like the idea of living in an eco village, I wouldn't pay anything up front to build my own space, garden etc. At that point, I might as well buy some property instead.

On the other hand, if you have an area where you can build with cob, strawbale, cordwood, slipform masonary construction, etc...What about hosting workshops? People can camp there, learn to build with alternative means, and in the end, you have the basic structure. Then have a workshop for building a rocket mass heater. And passive solar water heating, etc. And so on. You don't have to teach the workshop, but arrangements could be made for the instructor to be paid with $ collected for workshop fees.

So many things to get figured out...

 

[flaja]

I have been thinking about all this. Not being able to do much in the way of physical labor is so limiting. If you found a piece of property that had outbuildings, something that could be converted into housing, that would be helpful. Dancing Rabbit scrounged for anything/everything. They converted a small grain bin into a 'house'. One floor with a sleeping loft, one small solar panel to power the entire thing. The bathroom was never shown, so I'm not sure what they did there. They also had a main building with a kitchen and big dining area for group meals, held meetings there, shared ideas, etc. They had one vehicle that they converted to run on used vegetable oil.

Consider a couple like minded managers to help you get stuff up and going, offer them free rent for their duties. You'll still be foreman of the crew and maintain ownership. All the hard work is going to be done up front. I have to admit, that as much as I like the idea of living in an eco village, I wouldn't pay anything up front to build my own space, garden etc. At that point, I might as well buy some property instead.

On the other hand, if you have an area where you can build with cob, strawbale, cordwood, slipform masonary construction, etc...What about hosting workshops? People can camp there, learn to build with alternative means, and in the end, you have the basic structure. Then have a workshop for building a rocket mass heater. And passive solar water heating, etc. And so on. You don't have to teach the workshop, but arrangements could be made for the instructor to be paid with $ collected for workshop fees.

So many things to get figured out...

I have found real estate listings for a couple of properties in South Carolina that each have a mobile home as well as some outbuildings, so Ive already thought about ways to convert the outbuildings into housing.

I wouldnt really consider conventional building methods. I want to use sustainable technologies like rammed earth, earthbag, strawbale and compressed earth blocks as much to demonstrate their use as for their energy efficiency and low cost. I know that strawbale has been used in Alabama. Compressed earth block has been used in Florida; cob has been used in Georgia, and South Carolina has a church that was built with rammed earth back in the 1840s. I cannot go any farther north than South Carolina because I worry what a colder climate will do to my arthritis. But I know that at least one of these technologies will be useable no matter where I move to. Ive thought about hosting how-to workshops, but I will have to have people that know how to use these technologies either to conduct the workshops or to train the residents of the ecovillage so they can train others.

I couldnt consider buying property that doesnt have a place for me to live. My own DIY days are long gone. So after buying property and getting immediate housing for the first residents who can help with labor my first priority will be to set up vegetable gardens that can generate income that can fund future development. My second priority will be to install solar panels and methane digesters so the ecovillage can be self-sufficient in terms of energy. Then I would gradually add livestock and field crops and then buildings for additional residents and workshops.