Co-operative Living Information

Equilibrium Community Ecology runs workshops to explore the opportunities for Eco-villages, Co-housing and other co-operative living arrangements.

Interested in living co-operatively?

Eco-villages and co-housing projects commonly comprise groups of people who have come together specifically to work collectively to create an environmentally-sustainable lifestyle.

These are people who strive to integrate a supportive social environment with a low-impact way of life, through shared land ownership. Their way of life is manifest in practices which commonly include ecological design and building, permaculture, renewable energy technology, and the conscious use of community-building practices.

The workshop will be conducted in the framework of the constraints and opportunities for establishing such communities on the Central Coast. It will be quite literally about building communities - in architectural terms, as well as in the social, environmental and economic senses.

Themes covered will include:

• Environmental sustainability - combining building design with collaboration between residents provides greater opportunities to implement environmental practices
• Affordable housing - designed for living rather than for investment and resale
• Urban and rural planning and design - Community-initiated rural and urban environmental development which address population pressures
• Intentional community - A self-help approach to provide social and cultural structures to meet psycho-social needs with social interaction, cooperation and change
• Affordable lifestyles - providing time for people to enjoy a better quality of life, to be more engaged in socially-useful activities in the wider community
• Community economic activity - community-based income-producing opportunities

The eco-village model shows that through sharing resources and working co-operatively in neighbourhood communities, we can both reduce housing costs and meet environmental objectives. Cooperative ownership can be a middle ground between rental housing cooperative schemes and conventional private ownership.

Eco-village and co-housing communities are like any other housing development. They can be executed well or poorly. In this workshop, we will look at the factors that contribute to success.

Questions addressed at the seminar include:

• How can eco-village and co-housing projects help meet sustainable development and affordable housing demands?
• What are the economic, social and cultural impacts, for good or bad, of such intentional communities on the larger communities in which they are located?
• What should planners and regulators do to encourage appropriate projects and to safeguard sustainable development and affordable housing outcomes, along with other community objectives?

One-day workshop for the prospective eco-village participant

The day will be structured with information sessions and discussion drawing on existing examples to illustrate principles, objectives and practicalities, while the afternoon sessions will provide the opportunity for participants to collectively design an urban co-housing project or a rural eco-village.

PRICE: From $40 per person, bring food to share for lunch
 
To enquire about our next workshop, please contact

Mark Snell
02 4304 1634

PO Box 585,
Woy Woy NSW 2256

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