Concord Ecovillage

Quietly Searching

While our sister community Three Groves Ecovillage works to develop the land they have found, we will be continuing the search for land in Kennett Square PA, Newark DE, or the surrounding area. Be sure you check in with Three Groves Ecovillage often since things will be moving rapidly there. At the same time, don't forget about us. We'll let you know when we have found suitable land, and hope that you will join us on our Yahoo Group (join from the Favorite Links page) and here on the Blog from time to time.

Why the New Name "Three Groves Ecovillage"?

It is very common that when a Cohousing or Ecovillage group finds land, the group splits. There will be those who are willing to commit to the selected location and others who have different criteria. What is perfect to one, is not satisfactory to another. Commute to jobs and schools, desire to live in a certain area, or proximity to family are all factors that affect an individual’s decision to move on a property.

Since last fall, the members of Concord Ecovillage were faced with these issues when we started to focus our efforts on the property on Willow Street in West Grove.  Several members felt that after more than a year of searching for land, that it was our best option to complete our project in a relatively short time-frame.  Other members had hearts set on possibilities near Kennett Square, despite a likely longer time-frame for completion.  At the time, we decided to try maintaining both efforts under the umbrella of one group.  However, it became increasingly clear that eventually we would need two legally and financially distinct organizations once project development began to gear up.  That time has come.

We now have two separate legal and financial structures – Concord Ecovillage will continue to seek to build an ecovillage near Kennett Square PA or Newark DE, and Three Groves Ecovillage will build an ecovillage on the property northwest of the corner of Prospect Avenue (Rt. 841) and State Road in West Grove.  As sister organizations, hope to sponsor joint efforts in the future, and we look forward to a time when there are two ecovillages in southern Chester County.

So what members are in which group? For a time, the Three Groves Ecovillage Founding Members will be carrying memberships in both groups. Eventually, it will probably look like this:

Three Groves Ecovillage Founding Members:

·         Janet and Vic Pelletier (and kids Kira and Elise)

·        Anthony Aufdenkampe and Bonnie Dickson (and kids Lily, Ruby and May)

·         Lane and Leslie Travis

·         Debbie Dehghan

ConcordEcovillage Members:

·             Tom Hammer and Barbara Pizzala (Founders and Visionaries)

     Steve Welzer

Concord Ecovillage Secures Land!

Concord Ecovillage is extremely pleased to announce that 7.5 acres has been secured for an ecovillage a half mile south of downtown West Grove, PA, at the northwest corner of Prospect Avenue (Rt. 841) and State Road.  We are extremely enthusiastic about this property!  It has a perfect southern to south-western exposure for harvesting solar energy and is directly across the street from the new 85 acre London Grove Community Park.  It is a walkable half mile to the Library, post office, five restaurants, and other businesses in downtown West Grove, and also about a half mile to the public middle and high schools.  This property is a much better fit for us, in nearly every respect, than the property we considered this fall on the corner of Willow Street and South Guernsey Road.

The name of the neighborhood that we will build on this property will be Three Groves Ecovillage, in honor of the location in London Grove Township, bordering West Grove Borough, and within Avon-Grove School District.  Concord Ecovillage will continue, as a sister organization, to seek to build an ecovillage near Kennett Square PA.  Please read our full update, progress and event listings at www.ThreeGrovesEcovillage.org.

We have a number of upcoming events, and hope that you will join us for some of them:

Sat. May 16.  Visit us at London Grove Green Fair at the community park across the street from our property. Tours of the property will depart from our booth every hour on the hour.  10 am to 2 pm.

Sat. May 16.  Mid-Atlantic Cohousing Bus Tour.  For those of you who have already talked to us, know West Grove, but want to learn more about cohousing, this tour is highly recommended.  Make your reservations soon, there are only a few spots left!

Wed. May 27.  Presentation of site and development plan to London Grove Township Planning Commission.  7 pm. 372 Rosehill Road, West Grove PA

Wed. June 3.  Presentation of site and development plan to London Grove Township Board of Supervisors.  7:30 pm. 372 Rosehill Road, West Grove PA

Sun. June 7.  Public presentation of site and development plan, and monthly potluck. Location TBD, but check back on the calendar.

Help us refine our contact and email distribution list.  Over the last year our contact list has expanded to over 550 email addresses.  If you already received this message via email, you are on our list. If you would like to be on our list, please email us using the link in the margin and let us know. To help us communicate with you more effectively, please let us know to which of the following groups you belong:

• Potential Residents/Homebuyers in Ecovillage
• Municipal Officials/Staff
• Building and Design Professionals
• Local press
• Just interested

We hope to see you soon, and also hope that you will join us in this effort to bring an Ecovillage to Chester County!

All the best,

Concord Ecovillage and Three Groves Ecovillage.

http://www.concordecovillage.org and http://ThreeGrovesEcovillage.org

London Grove Township...more steps forward.

With further analysis, we've decided that a property in London Grove (very near West Grove and upwind from the mushroom facilities) holds the most promise. We are currently running the numbers and working on a draft ProForma to see how many houses we would need to build to make it work. We're also trying to make those houses a little bigger since the reaction to the Willow Street plan was that the houses were just a little too small. The biggest factors we have to look at are the willingness of the London Grove Township to work with us, the availability of public water, and the price.

We are on the agenda to present to the London Grove Planning Commission meeting on the 25th of February at 7:00 PM. It's open to the public, so please come support us! It will be at the Township Office, 372 Rose Hill Road, West Grove, PA 19390. The response we get there will tell us whether we should proceed to giving a presentation to the Board of Supervisors, hopefully on March 4. In talking to some of the folks at London Grove so far, they have been very excited about the project, and very very supportive. They are enthusiastic about all things green, and would love to have a LEED-Platinum community as a part of London Grove. As we have known for any property we have considered, we will need some help with the zoning to get the tight clustering we want, so their receptivity to us is very key. I think we're off to a good start here.

The second big factor is water. To be LEED-certified, we cannot just drill wells to get our drinking water; we need access to public water. We're on the trail of that, with calls in to the DEP, and the thought that lines could be extended to the property from West Grove or from the neighboring township. Both seem pretty close, but this will be a factor in cost and timeline, and we have to make sure that things look acceptable.

For the third factor, we are in discussion with the owner on the price. We have a number of creative options up our sleeves to make this work; some are options that we thought up, and some of them are things the owner has come up with. We are hopeful that with a little time and thought, we can come up with an agreement that is a win for everyone.

Land Quest, Re-Newed.

People always say that things work out for the best in the end. That was hard to see when we walked away from the Willow Street land in West Grove, but it's really really true. After I posted the "No Go...This Time" entry, the most wonderful thing started happening: landowners started approaching us and asking if we might be interested in their land. Not that their land was officially on the market, just that they wanted to sell, and more importantly, they wanted to sell to us because they believed in our project. It's a fantastic feeling to realize how many people have been quietly rooting for us, watching and waiting for the chance to push the project along in some way.

Tuesday found us in a long caravan of cars traipsing through the snow to look at a number of properties in the Kennett Square and West Grove areas. We had three kids along, who took the opportunity at every stop to play with their buckets in the snow and leave little snow castles dotted across the county. Of the properties we saw, we eliminated some from the running as being too difficult to develop. The remaining two are both great choices, but we need to do a little more investigation and number crunching before extending an offer on either.  At this stage, we can't tell you much about the properties except in generalities. The two properties in the running are both larger than the Willow Street property, and both have nice sections of a stream or creek. They are less walkable than Willow Street, but easily bike-able to various amenities, and both have great school systems.

While we were looking at the properties in London Grove Township, we got to meet Steve Brown (Township Manager), Rhona Klein (Special Projects/Recycling Coordinator) and Shane Kinsey (Code Administration Officer). What a great group of people! They were very excited to learn about our project and to make sure we understood just how eager they were to have a LEED-certified project in the township. We were very happy to learn just how welcome we would be if we choose a London Grove property.

No Go...This Time.

Well, the realities of the economic downturn got us this time. After much research and crunching of numbers, we determined that the total cost of doing the project on the Willow Street property in West Grove would result in higher home prices than could be competitive in the local market. We managed to get many of the line items in our total estimate down, but some of the biggies that were specific to this property couldn't be budged. So regrettably, we are walking away from the Willow Street property.

The good news is that we are not back to square one by any stretch of the imagination!  We are more convinced that ever that this project can work in our area when we find the right property. We have met so many people who really want this project to happen and can help, that it will be only a matter of a little time before we have located the right property for us. Our developers, Sandy and Jackie have reassured us that they are 110% dedicated to this project, and will stay with us and help us find the next property. Our real estate agent Margot has already started to pull additional information on a property or two that we have spotted in the area. We have a really dedicated team, and a lot of interest generated in the community.

We will re-group in the next week or two to determine updated criteria for what we want in a new piece of land. We'll be considering (sometimes conflicting!) criteria such as open space, walkability to a small town, whether approvals are already in place, how ecovillage-friendly the local government seems, school systems, and of course, affordability. We'll keep you posted as we determine what priorities are now most important to us. The things that haven't changed are that we want to be able to build 30-40 homes, and to be within the southern-Chester County PA or maybe northern New Castle County DE area.

YOU CAN HELP! If you know of a property that may be of interest to us, please help us to connect with the owner. We have leads on some properties, but are also very interested in suggestions at this time.

Stick with us. We're not out of the game, just back by a couple points.

50+ People at our Monthly Meeting and Potluck

Tonight we had an outstanding validation of the widespread appeal of our project. Six and a half weeks after signing the agreement of sale on the Willow Street property in West Grove, we had over 50 adults (and about a dozen children) attend our monthly potluck and meeting. They came from as far as northern New Jersey to hear about our plans to build the first zero-net energy, LEED-Platinum certified ecovillage and cohousing neighborhood in the USA. They enjoyed home baked cookies and brownies and listened to a compelling 75 minute presentation by Equity Member Anthony Aufdenkampe and our development partners, Sandy Wiggins and Jackie O'Neil. They asked lots of thoughtful and pertinent questions, and discussed our plans with us well into the evening.

If you missed the meeting, or attended and would like to share our exciting plans with family or friends, please download our presentation, in PDF format (hit control-L for full screen slideshow).

• Download Presentation-toCEV-20081207-v3-Part1 (4.6 MB)
• Download Presentation-toCEV-20081207-v3-Part2 (8.7 MB)

Sandy's calculation of the cumulative savings and net present value of a zero-net energy home are particularly interesting.  In short, using typical home energy usage, current energy costs, and a very reasonable estimate that energy costs will escalate by 6% annually, Sandy calculated that cumulative savings would be $349k over the span of a 30 year mortgage (with different assumptions, his estimates ranged from $150k-$699K). The net present value of these savings is around $75k (possible range of $37k-$135k).  In other words, buying a $350k home in Concord Ecovillage gives the equivalent investment value of a $425k conventional home.  In addition, some banks are now beginning to consider this value, and will qualify a buyer for a $350k Concord Ecovillage home who would only qualify fo ra $276k conventional home.

Unveiling our Site Plans

This last week was very exciting, because we unveiled our draft site plans to our membership and also the West Grove Borough Council.

On Sunday, Nov. 2 we brought over a dozen members and potential members of Concord Ecovillage to the property for a site walk in the afternoon, then headed over to Kennett Friends meeting house for our monthly potluck where we were joined by another dozen more people.  It was by far our largest potluck of the year!

Our developers, Sandy Wiggins and Jackie O'Neil, and I presented to the group a powerpoint slideshow describing the concepts of ecovillages, cohousing and green building, our guiding principals for this project (Touchstones), and our freshly drafted site sketch plan.  In all, our core members were very excited to see our plans solidifying into architectural sketches, and the presentations and discussions generated substantial interest with newcomers.

On Wed, Nov. 5, Sandy Wiggins and I presented a shorter version of the slideshow to the West Grove Borough Council at their monthly meeting.  The purpose of this meeting was to describe the site design considerations that are central to ecovillages and cohousing neighborhood, in order to get general support for our site plan, which we knew would violate many zoning codes. 

The Council was very open, if not enthusiastic, about our proposed project and site plan, as were many other supportive people in the audience.  The council offered to work actively with us to develop a new zoning ordinance or overlay that would allow us to build our site plan.  This was the very best outcome we could have hoped for, and all of us left with huge grins on our faces!

Working on Sketch Plans

The most exciting meeting I think I've ever had was yesterday at the Manyunk office of Re:Vision Architecture. Note that I'm not generally a fan of meetings, but this one was different. Not only was the effort a collaborative gathering of very dedicated minds, but we got the first chance to see sketches of proposed layouts for our community. Everyone had something to contribute, and we took the great ideas that the architects brought to the table, and made them even better. The sketch that results from this meeting will be used at the November 5th meeting with West Grove Borough where we orient them on what an ecovillage is (or isn't), and what we need for zoning.

Jenn Rezeli (Re:Vision) presented different options and we all weighed the pros and cons of each.

Leslie and Lane Travis contemplated the different plans.

JP Brokken (Re:Vision), Sandy Wiggins, and Anthony Aufdenkampe. There was a lot of serious thinking going on.

Jenn, Anthony, Scott Kelly (Re:Vision) and Janet Pelletier examine a natural pebble treatment for shower floors.

Walking our land with Rep. Art Hershey

On Thursday, October 23rd we had a Land-Walk on the Willow St. property in West Grove,Pa. We had gathered to introduce State Representative Art Hershey to our Concord Ecovillage project. We were sharing with Rep. Hershey, our goal of "LEED" certification. LEED stands for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System, which is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance "green" buildings.

Buildings that are LEED certified have taken into consideration such things as water and energy saving measures, reduced construction waste, the selection of renewable or "green" building materials and the attention to indoor air quality. Art was very supportive of our project; and has offered to help us in any way possible. He also will be looking into State funded grants for solar power to move us toward our goal of "Net-Zero" energy. Art Hershey is also a farmer and long-time advocate of agricultural land preservation. As we stood in the sunny meadow that morning, he commented on how great the soil must be, judging from the clumps of rich, green grass. I suspect he's a guy who would know.

In attendance were ( pictured, left to right ) Developer Sandy Wiggins, our Real Estate agent Margot Mohr-Teetor, Rep. Art Hershey, Developer Jackie O'Neil; and equity-member and future home-owner Lane Travis. Our picture was graciously taken by friend Gwen Lacy, Executive Director of Kennett Land Trust .

Picture yourself here too. We have a few houses left. One might be yours.