USA: Urban Ecovillages

Another similar urban project is N St. Cohousing (http://www.ic.org/directory/n-street-cohousing) in Davis, a college town in California’s Central Valley. Unlike the urban examples described above, N St. neighbors live on all sides of a city block in a shady residential area, and each owns or rents their own house and lot. (While N St. is a cohousing community rather than an ecovillage, I include it because of it has many of the same sustainability aspects as an urban ecovillage.)
Even though each of the 18 lots on the block are owned privately, N St. Cohousing looks and feels like common land because there are no fences between yards and everyone shares the space. Some amenities are located in various members’ back yards but are used by everyone: the community garden, a greenhouse, a composting area, a chicken coop, beehives, the community toolshed, the community bike rack, a children’s play structure, a tree house in a large tree, a large trampoline, a pizza oven, and a large patio eating area. A footpath passes behind the rear each house and encircles the large shared area.
Because houses in this 1950’s-era subdivision were designed with bedrooms on the front, street side of the house, and with kitchens and dining areas on the rear, facing the back yards, people doing dishes or sitting at their kitchen table can look out their windows and wave to folks passing by. And people on the path can see who’s home and maybe stop in for a visit. The combination of visual and physical proximity with private home ownership creates a good balance for creating a congenial community.

Over the years three households across the street on the N St. side of the block joined the community, and this year one household across the street on the other side of the block. Although these folks don’t have contiguous backyards like the others, they can still just walk across the street to participate in community meals or other activities.

According to N St. cofounder Kevin Wolfe, about 65 people participate in the community in some way. “Approximately 70 percent are reasonably active,” he says, “attending common meals, work parties, social events, and other activities. About 30 percent are less active.” N St. Cohousing has 70 percent renters and 30 percent owners. Many original residents who moved away rent out their houses, and four properties on the block have second small rental units as well.

N St. Cohousing uses the “N. St. Consensus Method,” a modification of classic consensus. If one or more people block a proposal, they, and several advocates of the proposal meet in a series of solution-oriented meetings to create a new proposal that addresses the same issue as the first proposal. At the end of that time, or before, their new proposal comes to the next meeting and they begin anew. If, however, the people who blocked and the proposal advocates do not create a new proposal, the original proposal comes back for a 75 percent super-majority vote.
When I visited N St. Cohousing in 2007 I asked some residents I met in the dining room if they liked their decision-making method. They did!

N St. Cohousing began in 1979 when Kevin lived in a five-bedroom student housing co-op on N. St. The house later became a co-op for both student and non-students, and when it was up for sale, Kevin bought it and kept it a shared group household. In 1986 Kevin and his wife Linda Cloud bought the house next door and took down the fence. Over the next several decades other friends and then people simply interested in living in community began the block and removed the fences. In 1995 the group began designing a community building to replace the rather dilapidated original student co-op house. Ten years later, in 2005, Kevin and Linda had raised enough money, and the co-op house was torn down. The two-story structure they had built in its place has a community kitchen, large dining room, a meeting room, a laundry room, and a wheelchair-accessible studio apartment on the ground floor, and a four-bedroom apartment for shared group living on the second floor.
Kevin and Linda are using rent from the building to pay off their construction loan. Once it’s paid off they will set up a 501(c)3 nonprofit for N St. Cohousing and create a second legal entity, a charitable remainder trust, through which they will donate the community building to the new N St. nonprofit. At that point Kevin and Linda will have been reimbursed in full and the community will own its own community building.

What’s the common factor in these projects? First, neighborhoods with physical layouts that make it easy for neighbors to meet and interact with each other, and a degree of seclusion from the rest of the city: a cul-de-sac street or kitchens facing into the backyard. And second, champions — savvy, committed people who make it happen and keep on making it happen, like Lois in Los Angeles, Jim and Eileen in Cincinnati, and Kevin and Linda in Davis. I believe creating community in your existing neighborhood is a growing trend. In a few years we may have more organized-neighborhood projects to report on. Stay tuned.

Diana Leafe Christian, author of Creating a Life Together and Finding Community, speaks at conferences, offers consultations, and leads workshops about ecovillages internationally. She is a placeholder representative for the Eastern US in ENA, a GEN-Europe Ambassador, and an EDE trainer. www.DianaLeafeChristian.org.