Community-Led Housing & Ecovillages
Community-Led Housing & Ecovillages
Housing is not only a building--it is a home where people find belonging and meaning, where their sense of place is connected to the surrounding community and to the natural environment in which it is situated.
It used to be the normal for communities to work together to create their housing in response to their needs, their culture, available resources, and local environmental conditions. This is still the case in many indigenous and rural communities around the world.
There are many different forms, means, and terms for community-led housing including ecovillage, co-housing, cooperative housing, intentional community, pocket neighbourhood, tiny home community, and community land trust.
Now, in urban and modern society, this community-led role has been outsourced to developers that neither know nor are responsible for the social dynamics of those for whom they're building and development policies and financial systems are suited to developers-as-builders-of-buildings not communities-as-builders-of-homes. Housing has been commodified and the process removed from the participation of the people who will be living there. But, the effects of this system of development has created a number of negative consequences.
In response to a number of overlapping factors: the unaffordable cost of housing, climate change and environmental damage due to the extraction and use of resources for building, feelings of isolation and disconnection in modern neighbourhoods, and a general sense of powerlessness of communities to participate in their own housing development, the community-led housing movement is growing. People want and need to be a part of place-making and be a part of local solutions to our global crises.
Support for the movement is needed so that communities can create solutions to their housing needs. As such, all role players in the current system need new knowledge, skills, and relationships to enable the movement to succeed socially, financially, and be ecologically sustainable.
This is a new paradigm for most. Councils will need help understanding their role in community-led housing and to learn from local governments in other countries that are doing it well, including creating conducive policies and planning. Developers and house-builders will need help engaging with groups to build together. Financial institutions will need to offer different financing options such as rent-to-buy and shared equity mortgages. Community members will need a variety of soft and hard skills including participatory decision making, conflict resolution and group facilitation as well as permaculture design, ecological systems, best building practices, and more...
An ecovillage is an intentional, traditional or urban community that is consciously designed through locally-owned participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability (social, culture, ecology, economy) to regenerate social and natural environments. (Global Ecovillage Network)
Given our current global crisis due to climate change, we need bold and holistic solutions to the way our societies function and develop because gradual change and business as usual is not good enough to reverse the temperature rise and environmental destruction the planet is facing. Ecovillages can come in different forms but the principles of participation and sustainability are what define it. Any housing development can be an ecovillage based on its intentional design.
Who & What We Support
Community Land Trusts
We can support CLTs in a number of ways including capacity building for staff and trustees, community engagement processes, and networking with stakeholders.
Intentional community groups
There are many housing and neighbourhood options for groups of people who want to create their own housing solutions and intentional communities. We can help groups at any stage of their community-led housing process.
Local & Regional Councils
We help Councils to understand and support community-led housing initiatives and to engage with community groups wanting to create their own housing solutions and other stakeholders like developers, land owners, and other departments.
Developers
We work with visionary and innovative developers who want to leave a legacy of a housing development is responsive to community needs, ecologically sustainable, and socially cohesive.
How we support your project success
Systems Design and
Project Architecture
This process looks at the whole system of what makes up housing as a home, a structure, a part of the community, considers current homeowners as well as future generations.
We take into account the land, ecosystems, and other natural factors as well as the vision and values of the future homeowners.
A systems design works to create a project that will be socially, environmentally, and economically viable and sustainable.
Network Weaving and
Stakeholder Engagement
Housing is made up of future home-owners, surrounding neighbours, builders, financial lenders, and other stakeholders who all have their own understanding and role to play within the project. Getting everyone involved who will be affected, on the same page and working effectively together ensures that the project will come to fruition.
We help to create strong relationships and engage stakeholders in a way that creates social cohesion and congruence.
Facilitation and
Team Dynamics
The group originating the project will benefit from a skilled facilitator to keep the discussions focused, results oriented, working through roadblocks effectively, and building a good foundation of positive interactions.
We work with project teams to create a spirit of collaboration, synergy, creative expression and appreciative inquiry. We model effective and kind communication and win-win solutions.
Transformative Learning & Capacity Building
We offer courses, customized to the needs of your team, project, or community. Below are just a few of the topics that we can put together to ensure all role players involved have the knowledge and the skills they need for the project to get off to a good start and have ongoing success.
Community Land Trust systems
Succeeding with community-led housing
Effective group decision making processes
Effective interpersonal communication for groups
Ecological land design for sustainable neighbourhoods
Ecological housing models
Facilitation & group dynamics TOT
Conflict resolution for groups
We're keen to support you with your innovative housing project
Common Ground
Whakatū/Nelson, Aotearoa/New Zealand│Director, Zola Rose │(027) 449-0422│kiaora@commonground.net.nz
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