Eco-Village, River Falls, WI

[jebatty]

Habitat for Humanity with many partners is building a community centered, sustainable-type development of very usable housing. It is a significant effort in achieving affordable, sustainable, efficient housing development. (broken link removed to http://www.scvhabitat.org/sites/default/files/files/ecovillage_complete-lr.pdf)[/url]

 

[Jags]

I liked it until I got to the "shared" electric vehicles. There ain't no way you will have 18 homes in one place that will cohabitate peacefully with "shared" vehicles. Wait till little Ralphy and Suzie hit 16 yrs old.

...But I do respect what they are doing. I have some acreage directly to the East of me (10 acres) that I have put some serious thought into developing. The little town closest to me has consumed all the available lots to build. My thoughts are something a-kin to the River Falls project, but maybe a little less of the Socialist side (I mean that in an interactive "sharing" way - not as a political statement). No two houses will use the same amount of electric or cooling, or water, etc. Unless it is metered out, someone will always claim that so and so uses more an therefore should pay more for upkeep and repairs...blah, blah blah. I dream of a cluster of 10 houses with a net zero energy goal.

 

[jebatty]

Your dream of a cluster development is a great idea. Make a plan and start to implement it. Provide for whatever degree of sharing, socialistic or not, you think will work, and go for it. We need better ways to live in community with each other.

I doubt that "shared" vehicles will be the only vehicles. With the development in the city of River Falls, sharing will work very well for much of the home-town-home traffic. I'm thoroughly amazed that we see so little sharing. Every home owner "needs" their own lawnmower, snowthrower, weed wacker, etc. and most of all their own pickup, suv or van and even large or small car. And most of the time all of these sit idle. What a huge sum of wasted resources, and depreciating resources at that!

Metering of water and electric usage, heating/cooling usage, is a no-brainer. Providing these on a district basis makes huge sense and offers big economies and opportunities.

Minneapolis-St. Paul already has 37 HOURCARS shared vehicles; similarly with shared bicycles. Rental companies succeed with shared almost everything. There is no reason that a plan, accountability, and expense cannot be shared. In fact, people in large cities with public transportation do it all the time, adjusting their schedules as necessary to mesh with the public system. I see no problem with doing the same to reserve a shared car in advance. No, I probably cannot take it on a vacation or for a long trip, but to run to the grocery store, pickup the kids after school music or sports practice, etc., all of these could work very well.

It will be very interesting to see how Eco-Village works out, what issues arise and what solutions they devise, and what might be done in a similar type of development and do it better.