Sounds great, but how do we get there?

The first step is to find out the interest level in the community, that's where you come in. We can't "build it and they will come", so we need to know if there is enough interest that we will be able to sell homes for the village. These homes will be smaller than the current norm, but will be well built and fully modern and functional. It's very important that the homes are affordable, otherwise they're not practical.

If there is sufficient interest in the community, then the next step is to assemble a group of professionals who are familiar with the building techniques, alternative energy systems, and engineering. The significance of developing a sustainable housing development is important to me and that will also be an important criteria for the development team to share. This is about shaping the future, not a quick buck.

One of the challenges that we face, is that this ecovillage doesn't fit the standard house or housing development for either residential zoning or bank financing. We could build it out in the woods somewhere to make it easier, but I'd like to challenge our cities to look "outside the box". Adapting the zoning to allow for sustainable development would be an important part of effecting change, so I'm willing to fight that fight.

Banks are another story, until some developments like this are demonstrated to be successful, that's probably not an option. For this reason, we will eventually be looking for a private investor to finance the project. The investor would finance the project until all properties are paid for and recieve a return on his investment. Once the project is paid for, it will be turned over to the Ecovillage for joint ownership.

This won't be an easy project to accomplish, but someone's got to be first. We could wait for the natural progression for this to happen, but I'm not willing to wait. Being the first also has it's benefits. I would hope to be able to get some funding from state, local, and federal agencies which will help out. In return, we will share our successes and what we learned to others so they can build on what we learned.