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Twenty-one years after its founding in1991 at the hands of Liz Walker and Joan Bokaer, Eco Village in Ithaca continues to grow, so much that the sustainable community seeks new members. Plans for a third neighborhood to accompany FRoG (First Residents Group) and SoNG (Second Neighborhood Group) are under way. The third neighborhood will be called, fittingly, the Third Residential Eco Village Experience, or TREE.
“It’s very exciting,” says Walker, director of EVI. “We’ve always wanted to build a whole village, and with TREE, we will have 100 households.”
The first two neighborhoods each contain 30 homes and a Common House space that contains a children’s play area, laundry area, a community dining area (if one chooses to eat there), offices, meeting areas and more. TREE will consist of 25 homes and 15 apartments in the Sustainable Living Center, a multi-story building; the ground floor will also serve as the third neighborhood’s Common House.
Walker says the goals for TREE are to make it more affordable and more accessible than FRoG and SoNG. To that end, EVI is offering different unit sizes, including apartments—which are new to the village—so more people can afford to live there. The types of housing include studio, one-, two- to three-bedroom apartments; a two-bedroom duplex; a two-bedroom house, or a three- to four-bedroom house. Approximate costs range from $80,000 for a studio apartment, to a four-bedroom house for $235,000.
Walker says that most of the houses in TREE will be handicapped-accessible. “One of the things we’ve found out over the last 21 years of building this project is that we’re all getting older,” she says with a laugh. Some people are beginning to have trouble walking, and others may have disabilities. “It just seems like good planning and common sense,” she says. FRoG has also received accessibility upgrades, including an automatic door opener in the FRoG Common House and paved pathways between units.
The building techniques used for TREE homes is unusual as well, says Walker. Houses in both FRoG and SoNG are passive solar, meaning they face due south, and have a lot of windows on the south side to absorb as many solar rays as possible. During the winter, when the sun is lower in the sky, the house will still be heated. In the summer, when the sun is higher, the windows are shielded from it by trellises overhead.
“One of the things I am really excited about {for TREE} is that we’re going to be demonstrating a very new green building technique that is quite widely used in Europe but is barely known in the United States,” says Walker. This technique is referred to as passive house or passiv haus, in German. These types of homes save 90 percent of the energy a typical American home would use, according to Walker. She says there are only 13 certified passive house homes in the United States and her hope is that TREE will contain 25.
While solar heating is used in these houses, they are also very insulated: The walls of homes in TREE will be about 12 inches thick, a measurement that includes the Sheetrock inside, a large amount of insulation, and the outside wall. They will also be airtight, but not in an unhealthy way. A mechanical ventilator, called the Heat Recovery Ventilator, or HRV, will bring in continuous fresh air, which is heated by the warm exhaust air without the two mixing.
“You don’t have drafts, it’s evenly heated, and you get all of this fresh air,” says Walker. “It’s really a lovely, very comfortable way of living.”
TREE Houses
Walker’s plans included breaking ground on infrastructure in June, the houses in July, and the Sustainable Living Center in August. She expects to be done and have everyone moved in by next summer. Some people will be moving in by the end of this year, she says. Thirty units have already been purchased, but 10 units remain up for grabs.
To become a member of TREE, potential residents must follow a process or learn about their possible new home, according to Walker. First, potential residents are asked to look through EVI’s website and learn as much as possible about the community. While a tour of the village isn’t mandatory, it makes sense that potential residents check out the neighborhood. Free public tours are held the last Saturday of each month at 3 p.m. starting at the FRoG common house. Private tours can also be arranged in exchange for becoming a member of EVI, which is considered a nonprofit, at a fee of $35 for an individual or $50 for a family. Membership in the nonprofit supports EVI’s educational work and allows the member to receive updates via email.
People interested in living at EVI should then come for an extended stay, either in the form of multiple visits or a five-day stay. EVI operates several bed-and-breakfasts on site, as well as several guestrooms for people to stay for a fee. People can also stay overnight in Ithaca. Another option is to plan several afternoon visits. To arrange to stay or visit EVI, interested parties should send an email to visit-coordinator@ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us.
“We want people to really understand the values behind this place and meet a lot of different people from around here,” says Walker. “It’s kind of a relationship-building time.”
The next step is to join at the Associate Membership level, where the potential resident pays a $250 non-refundable fee that allows him or her to come to meetings, take part in discussions, and begin to feel like part of the group. If people are serious about joining EVI, they then enter at the Joint Venture membership level, making a deposit of $20,000 to $27,000 toward the predevelopment costs of building their neighborhood (and their home). That amount then becomes a down payment should a purchase be made.
Membership in the older neighborhoods follows a similar process. Sometimes houses in the first two neighborhoods come up for sale or rent, and people are welcome to bid on them. “Rather than us screening people, we ask that people interested in living here screen us,” says Walker.
Units are financed through a mortgage, like a typical American home. People interested in living at EVI could also rent. Several homeowners at EVI are landlords, and own units that they then rent.
Each neighborhood is set up, legally, as a New York state housing cooperative, and the exterior of the homes are maintained by the cooperative. EVI does extensive composting and reuse, and uses Ithaca’s trash and recycling services. Most of the children at EVI attend Ithaca City Schools, although there are a few who are home-schooled, and another handful that attend the local Montessori school.
EVI exemplifies the practice of co-housing, a form of housing that allows residents to actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighborhoods. Walker calls it a “wonderful way of balancing privacy and community. People own their own homes, and then you can have as much privacy in your own home as you want,” she explains. “If you want to interact with your neighbors, you just have to go outside and see who is around.”
EVI also features two farms on site: West Haven Farm and Kestrel Perch Berry Farm, a you-pick berry farm. Both farms are owned by residents, and both are set up as a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, which has grown in popularity over the years. A farmer offers “shares,” usually consisting of a portion of the farm’s product, such as a box of vegetables. Consumers purchase a share, and receive seasonal produce weekly throughout the season. During the growing season, West Haven feeds about 1,000 people a week, including both residents of EVI and customers from all over Tompkins County.
Judy Leaf has been living at Eco Village since last July, but has been coming regularly since a year before that, to attend TREE meetings “The scenery is so beautiful, you can see forever,” says Leaf, while gazing out the window of her home in FRoG, which overlooks the pond. Leaf hopes to eventually join the TREE community in a few years.
Leaf used to live near a lake in northwestern New Jersey, and had to be totally self-sufficient because there weren’t a lot of people or provisions around. “It was beautiful, but I was really lonely. I feel like I am paddling around in a sea of community here,” she says. “It’s the polar opposite.”
Leaf likes that communication with residents is wide open. If she needs anything, any kind of provision—a cup of sugar—or help with a task, she uses email to get a quick response. She also likes learning from other residents, who all bring different skills to EVI. One taught her how to unclog her sink. “I enjoy being able to rely on what others know, and using what I know,” she says. Leaf also values the decision-making process here.
“These are multimillion-dollar developments based on consensus decision-making,” says Walker. It involves learning how to really listen to each other and make decisions that take into account many different viewpoints. “It’s sometimes a difficult process, but it works well here.” Residents often form teams to help keep EVI running smoothly, whether it’s volunteering for the composting team, outdoor maintenance, cooking, future project planning and more.
Leaf says that there is an acknowledgement in the community that everyone help out, that there are some tasks that you may not have to do because someone else volunteered to be on the team to do it, such as taking care of exterior house maintenance. “What makes it all possible is that everyone chips in,” she says. She helps out on the cook team, making meals at FRoG’s Common House a few days a week.
Leaf says that on typical early mornings you can see people out and about walking their dogs on the trails through the meadows. During the workweek, it’s quiet, and in the late afternoons, the children play without worrying about cars. Overall, she says, learning to live cooperatively has its rewards. “It’s doable,” she says. “There are rich lives being lived here, there is a sense of abundance.”
When asked if there is anything she misses about her old lakeside home, she says, “I could walk out and get my kayak in the morning.” There is a pond with a kayak here, too, but it’s for children. “I don’t think I would fit in that,” she says with a laugh.
To find out more about joining TREE, email membership@tree.ecovillageithaca.org, or about Eco Village in general, email education@ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us or visit ecovillageithaca.org
