Cohousing-L Mailing List: Intentional Sustainability & Cooperation

[Guy Koehler, Rivendell Ranch (rivendell_ranch]

I am taking this lull as an opportunity to present my perspective of this
conversation. This precis is not intended to be neutral. I have deliberately
chosen those points and arranged them, which best fit my argument.

----- Begin PRECIS -----

Tree Bressen
(12/24) "further cooperation ...would be of great mutual benefit. There are
key institutions in American society that are not meeting people's needs and
are in desperate need of reform... Lately I've been asking myself and others
how these various resources in the communities movement can be brought
together to make a change."

David Mandel
(12/28) "decommoditization of housing ...Even if people take all your good
ideas ...and build cheaply, resale prices will be a function of the market
unless kept from becoming so. For real affordability, housing needs to be
removed from the world of commodities. Achieving that on a large scale
requires a major societal transformation. But there are some ways -- limited
equity co-ops, land trusts owned by nonprofits, in which it can conceivably
be done now as cohousing (or not)."

Sharon Villenes
(12/28) "...only buy real estate if it is your home and you want to live
there all your life. In that sense a home is always a good investment."
(12/29)  "One way or another, you have to work with the larger community in
your geographic area.  ...Who really wants to retire? We want to leave jobs
we don't like but the real life is in doing what we love doing. Why would we
want to stop? Once you do this you see the rat race of current investment
psychology more clearly."

Don Arkin
(12/29) "...the prevailing American consumer mindset (bigger and more
expensive is better?) along with the developer's and contractor's inherent
biases towards more expensive projects."

----- End PRECIS -----
----- Begin RESPONSE -----

After organizing the precis, I went out into the fields covered in snow to
throw hay to the sheep, horses and calves. While I was out there, I was
thinking about this thread and how my experience the last two and a half
years here on the ranch has changed my perspective on ownership, investment,
home and community.

The livestock are greedy. There is always one leader of each flock, herd
which leads the others. That leader is the one who decides where to go eat,
when to go and is always the first. I have to separate the feed into several
small piles so that the younger and less assertive members get the share
they need to get through this bad spell of weather and season. The chickens
also come to mind. There is one hen in particular who will chase after each
new throw of grain, regardless of the bounty at her feet. She just has to
have the newest thrown, and especially what one of the others is eating. She
is older and larger, and so often bullies the others out of their share. I
throw the grain far enough around so all will get what they need.

Humans seem to be the same way, which is not surprising considering that we
have evolved from the same environment. The first impulse is to grab the
resources we think we require for shelter, food, safety, comfort; for
ourselves, our immediate family, extended family, friends; community last.
This obsession with things has resulted in an extraordinarily wealthy
society; unfortunately, it has been built in great part from the resources
of millions of individuals who struggle daily to find enough food.

Do I as an American have a responsibility to the world at large? I say yes
when my comfort comes from the oil, bananas, coffee, diamonds, gems, cocoa,
minerals, rubber, fruit, vegetables, timbers that these other continents and
peoples have.

Do I as an American have a responsibility to my fellow countrymen? I say
yes. We rise or fall together. The plight of my neighbor, is my future.

I too worked in white collar America, in SF, LA and Seattle. My income was
high, and mostly went to financing my shelter, my immediate monthly food and
heat, saving for the future when I would not have to toil for another, and
then to my entertainment to make up for being restless doing the things that
I needed to do to finance being in the place I was required to be to earn
that income. When I turned 40, I started thinking about retirement, and
whether I had enough in savings to not have to work in some manual job at 65
to pay the bills. That question, do I have enough to retire led me to the
question of what I would be doing in retirement and what those expenses
would be. I discovered that I need to be on the land, close to the source of
life, creating something sustainable. I want to enjoy each day doing the
things I do, rather than suffer through years of toil to eventually find my
reward. Mind you, I now work hard than ever before: building fence, caring
for livestock, building the income ability of the ranch, building community.
Living sustainably within the means of the land I live on.

A home that requires an income to pay back the money borrowed to get it, is
not sustainable. It is instead, obtaining what one cannot afford. It is risk
incarnate. Should your health, job or the economy as a whole fail, your
income is at risk, as is your home that you do not own. Consider 1929, the
recent stock market and job melt down as examples of such risk.

I submit that sustainability is living within my means, growing the food I
eat, living well today, saving the bounty of summer for the dark of winter.
My home is simple in support of this. Rivendell is in the process of being
defined and organized to provide others with the same opportunity.

What is community? I submit that community is neighbors living sustainably
together; that any model which gathers resources to itself while leaving
neighbors to fend for themselves, is unsustainable.

In closing, is it things that bring happiness, or is it the people you share
them with? If it is the people, then what of those who are fenced out?



----- End RESPONSE -----
----- Begin Question / Answer -----

Joani Blank (12/28)

* How is your 160 acre Ranch currently zoned? How many dwellings are you
permitted to build on it, and does it have to be subdivided in a particular
way to build the number of homes you desire to build.

--=> 5 acre homes, horse boarding, timber, agricultural. 160 / 5 = 32 (per
current zoning if subdivided). Homes are not going to be built here using a
traditional development model. We are instead discussing how to build a
village which incorporates the best of sustainable technology in harmony
with the land and ecosystem we are a part of.

* Will you have to get variances to do what you want to do? Or get the
zoning changed altogether. How flexible are the building codes where you are
in relation to infrastructure requirements, building materials and methods,
and all the other myriad details that have to be considered in building to
meet local codes?

--=> Unknown. We are still planning, discussing. I expect that there will be
some very interesting conversations with the county zoning folk once the
Rivendell Community has reached consensus on the development plan.

* I'd like to see some projections in real dollars that show that your
members will be able to build their own dwellings at a cost they can afford.
Is building green really less expensive than conventional building? I
understand it often actually costs more. If your plans include a lot of
sweat equity which I believe they do, how can a low income family that needs
to hold down one or more full time jobs to support their family, also have
the "free time" to build their home.  And in order to build up to local
code, do you not need a lot of (presumably paid) professional electricians,
plumbers, roofers, etc.

--=> We're working on those projections and budgets, which are dependent on
the plan, design under development. There is building Green, which involves
traditional stick development and often costs more than non-Green; and there
is building alternatively using Natural Building Materials, such as cob,
straw bale, adobe, rammed earth, et al. Rivendell has gardens and livestock
for food, timber for heat, and many of the required raw materials to build
sustainable alternative housing using Natural Building Materials. The focus
is currently on cob. The Community will most likely subsidize a new member
with existing shelter, food and heat while that member constructs their own
dwelling with assistance from other community members. Once shelter is
completed, the new member will turn their attention to their contribution to
the community businesses and income. It is our intent to avoid paying
outsiders unless they are members of the Community cooperative. We are not
interested in funding someone else's unsustainable lifestyle. Your local
food coop is a clear example to what we intend with out coop, except that
our coop will include food, shelter, heat, etc.

* I think that at one point I read that most people who have expressed
interest in living in your community up until now are relatively low income
folks.  Do you imagine that your higher income investor/residents will be
essentially subsidizing the lower income residents, not by direct loans or
grants to them but by carrying the land or infrastructure costs or the costs
of building the common facilities? Again, some real dollar projections would
be useful and interesting.

--=> No investors will be accepted into Rivendell. It is expected that
Community members will be taxed to insure that all have access to the best
available health care, child care, education, risk mitigation, vacation, and
end of life safety (non-traditional retirement). Land, structures, and
"wealth" will not be owned by individuals. It will be held in trust by the
current generation for the benefit of all future generations. I too look
forward to real dollar projections, which will be forthcoming on the
Rivendell web site. "No child left behind" will be a reality here.


Guy Koehler
Rivendell Ranch
Hoquiam, WA 98550

http://www.geocities.com/rivendell_ranch


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