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The L.A. Eco-Village:
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I just came back from a visit to Ecovillage Los Angeles. One of the beautiful things I saw was the amazing gardens and fruit trees that cover the area and streets. You notice the children on the street and the friendliness of people who know and care about each other. This is not utopia. It is an ongoing living experiment and quite remarkable.
The community, since it acquired its first apartment building in 1996, has bought another one and now has 48 units in the Village for rental under the management of the residents. Lois Arkin, the founder of the non profit CRSP (Cooperative Resources & Services Project), had a vision with other folks in 1983 that the city needed to rebuild a social fabric into each neighborhood through transforming the way folks connected to their home (neighbors), jobs and the natural environment.
So the idea of Ecovillage came alive. An Ecovillage is a dynamic community that interacts with its surrounding neighborhood to create interconnecting businesses and jobs, more equitable and thoughtful use of resources and sharing. It allows the individual to socially interact, grow and be cared for in the neighborhood. It involves changing the structures by involving the entire neighborhood in the vision of what their home could look like. And then slowly showing government and business to see that change can happen. But the first thing Lois saw was the need to build the community through social interaction into a group that could live in the village and learn the skill of interacting with each other.
The following article is written by Lois Arkin (specifically for HopeDance magazine), the architect and visionary of the LA Ecovillage. For more articles penned by her about their process, see the back articles of InContext magazine via the web at http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC35/Arkin.htm or simply go to google.com and do a search for "Lois Arkin." You can call Lois Arkin and join regular tours around the neighborhood. Contact info: The L.A. Eco-Village website site is at http://www.ic.org, email: crsp@igc.org or phone 213/738-1254. [Wes Roe, co-editor of the South Coast HopeDance.]Across the way two Eco-Villagers are watering plants. Joe tends the raised beds that descend to the sidewalk in front of the eight-plex before he takes the Metro to his job in Long Beach. Lara uses a watering can for better control, caring for the drought tolerant native shrubs and volunteer wildflowers along the front of the adjacent 40 unit Spanish style apartment building. They greet parents and children walking to the nearby elementary school. Randy and Jimmy, two more Eco-Villagers, head off on their bikes. Both are bike messengers in downtown Los Angeles, three miles away.
This pastoral scene contrasts sharply with memories of the same area just after the Los Angeles uprisings in 1992. Now we see a neighborhood before it was a war zone. The transformation, which is on-going, derives from a commitment to integrated living patterns (social, economic and ecological). Eco-Villagers want to create a demonstration that is so beautiful and inspiring, others will be encouraged to begin or strengthen mindful living in their own neighborhoods.
Our housing provides us with endless opportunities to explore a variety of ways of further manifesting our vision for a healthier neighborhood. In the following article, a series of vignettes help us to understand how the social, economic and ecological aspects of community activities inform regenerative living patterns.Transportation
There is no off-street parking for intentional Eco-Villagers, and we try to attract people to the community who prefer to live without owning a private automobile. We are within walking distance of 25 buslines and two subway stops. Of 35 Eco-Villagers, 14 are carfree, 7 own cars but use them only occasionally, and 14 use cars regularly in their everyday travels. About the same number, 14, use bicycles on a daily basis for their primary means of transportation (or in combination with public transit), while several more non-car owners use only public transit on a daily basis. A centrally located apartment unit just off the main lobby in our big building has been designated as a common unit. The community has chosen to use this unit, at least temporarily, for bicycle parking and to provide a small bicycle repair shop in the kitchen. An Eco-Village team has designed bike racks from recycled wood to go around the perimeters of the walls so that floor space in the unit can be used for other activities. Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition founders Ron Milam and Joe Linton live in Eco-Village and have drawn several other County-wide bicycle activists to live here as well. As many as a dozen Eco-Villagers go off together for monthly critical mass bike rides, and there are frequent outings together among bicyclists. Carpooling is common as well.
Community Dinners
"How come you're the only one talking?" asked 7 year old Shawn at our community dinner a few months ago. It was a good laugh for all of us, roughly 25, gathered in the lobby of our 40 unit apartment building for the weekly potluck. The person doing all of the talking was a candidate for our upcoming city council election. He was the third self-invited front running candidate we'd had to Sunday night dinner. Apparently word was out amongst the candidates: Eco-Village was a good place to campaign. That suited us fine, an intentional community of 35, half of whom are local activists on a variety of issues, including river restoration, bicycle and public transit, community food security, fair trade, housing, and more. Having the candidates know who we are and the issues we support is an excellent step toward creating more sustainably oriented public policy and a heathier city for everyone.
We all bring our own non-throwaway eating ware, eat primarily vegan, compost our scraps on site, and frequently talk about our activist involvements.Peely paint and luscious gardens
"Building exterior scheduled for renovation May - June 2001, utilizing AFM no-VOC exterior paints distributed by Real Goods in West Los Angeles" reads the sign on our courtyard wall. The contrast of the paint-crumbling walls above our lush vegetable gardens is an uncomfortable incongruity for some of us, but the sign is easy notification to our many visitors that our plans to renovate are in place. Out in front of the building, a pile of mulch from recently pruned neighborhood street trees occupies about 30 feet of the parking lane. Utilizing the mulch locally avoids the polluting trip to the city's composting dump 20 miles away and saves us from having to haul it back The steaming compost attracted quite a bit of attention from our pedestrian traffic to two schools. An Eco-Villager took advantage of the opportunity to teach by creating an attractive explanatory sign to stick in the compost. The sign was written at the 3rd grade level to help the younger children from the K-2 school stretch, and the older children from the middle school read confidently about the composting process. By the time the courtyard is painted, the mulch will be a rich compost to spread on the garden areas that might be accidentally trampled by the Eco-Village wall repair and painting teams. Other neighbors have come by to take some of the mulch for their gardens as well.
Building Repairs, Rehabs, Systems and Materials
Our policies on building materials are to select the least toxic, least polluting, most local and most recycled materials whenever possible and practical. Our policy on waste issues is that before any job begins, there should be a plan for what will happen to the wastes. Because we are mostly lay people on these issues, this research takes quite a bit of time. Personal taste, occasional tight schedules and emergencies can interfere with our good intentions. We also have a policy to provide as many livelihood opportunities as possible and practical to Eco-Villagers.
Wednesday morning, the Rehab Subcommitte of the Building Committee, meets to assess renovation of units. During a recent meeting, we had to balance conflicting priorities. The workcompleting two apartment rehabs and making a number of routine repairs could all get done, but it would require a collaborative effort to encourage and support the Eco-Village workers and outside contractors, and make sure the materials were in place for them to do the work. Some of the collaboration simply required friendly reminder calls and notes to make sure people were following up on what they said they would do. Other tasks included studying the various options on ceramic tile: where was it made, what percentage recycled content does it contain, are colored tiles more resource intensive than the white, etc. Floor finish options had to be evaluated: shall we sand the paint off the existing floor and refinish it with non-toxic natural finishes that come from Germany or shall we simply repaint the floor with special locally produced no VOC paints and water based acrylics?.
We are also investigating how to revamp our hot water system. We have a 425 gallon hot water tank in our larger building which already needed replacement when we acquired the property. Our talented handyperson, Dale Kreutzer, has kept it alive with his special energy for the past five years. But it is a water and energy waster, and so the search has begun in earnest to replace it, probably in phases on our way to a solar electric system.Money, money, money, we can use some money today
Our Ecological Revolving Loan Fund (ELF) is available to accept loans from people we know well or who know of and believe in our work. There must be a high level of mutual trust for us to borrow money from someone. If we borrowed from a bank, we'd be on the hot seat to prove our worthiness. In the beginning when we had no track record, this was quite a formidable challenge. We prefer proving our worthiness to others, like ourselves, who are committed to building a sustainable and regenerative future. So we have no bank loans and no liens on our properties. It's worked fine for us.
Although we initially had loans from friends troughout the world, including Denmark, England, Hong Kong, Kenya, as well as throughout the U.S., increasingly, our lenders are more local. We also target our outreach for loans from the people who are directly benefitting from them, that is Eco-Villagers. Here's how our ELF works: We have 25 current loans of $3,000 to $100,000 at interest rates from 3% to 8% for one year to 10 year periods. People who make loans to us decide their own loan amount, interest rate and length of loan. They also decide on whether they want their loan to us to be on a simple interest basis or an amortizing basis, and whether for general Eco-Village projects or a specific use. These decisions are codified on our half page loan agreement which we encourage lenders to modify as suits their comfort level.
Interest and loan payback are paid quarterly from our ELF account. Our two buildings make a debt service payments each month from their individual building accounts to the ELF account. These debt service payments are on an amortizing basis and are sufficient to ensure that there is always enough money to pay the lenders.
It is an on-going challenge for Eco-Villagers to be mindful of living more holistically. We have assumed public responsibility for demonstrating integrated living patterns. Is it possible and practical to be very permeable and accessible to those who want to learn from us, yet continue to deepen our own community bonds with one another? Can we inspire each another to accelerate our own demonstration, while maintaining integrity with our vision for our own long term health and that of our homeplace? What special knowledge and personal qualities can we develop to help us maximize the number of beneficial connections within and between social, economic and ecological systems in our neighborhood? These are the questions we must answer together.Lois Arkin is the founder and Executive Director of CRSP, the Cooperative Resources & Services Project which sponsors the Los Angeles Eco-Village. She co-edited two books on sustainability and cooperative living issues (Sustainable Cities: Concepts and Strategies for Ecocity Living, Eco-Home Media and Cooperative Housing Compendium: Resources for Collaborative Living, U.C. Davis Center for Cooperatives) and has authored many articles on L.A. Eco-Village and sustainability issues. She is a founding member of the Ecovillage Network of the Americas <http://ena.ecovillage.org> and the Western U.S. representative of the ENA Council, and is associated with the Fellowship for Intentional Communities <http://www.ic.org>. The L.A. Eco-Village website site is at <http://www.ic.org>, email is crsp@igc.org or phone 213/738-1254.
Lara Morrison is an intentional L.A. Eco-Villager active in gardening and coordinating building rehab. She has a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and a Master's in Bioethics. A long career in cooperative natural food wholesaling and jazz concert production provide a useful background for the challenges of Eco-Village life.
The Los Angeles Eco-Village is a two block neighborhood in densely populated central Los Angeles within which an intentional community of 35 neighbors work with one another, other neighbors and the city to demonstrate the processes for creating a sustainable and regenerative community. Eco-Villagers intend to show that lower impact living patterns can result in a higher quality of life. We work at integrating the social, economic and ecological systems of the neighborhood for long term health. CRSP, the Cooperative Resources & Services Project, is the 21 year old nonprofit community development organization.
CRSP holds title to two apartment buildings consisting of 48 units of affordable housing. Built in the 1920s, the buildings were quite deteriorated at the time of acquisition in 1996 (the 40 unit) and 1999 (the 8 unit). While 35 neighbors have moved to Eco-Village to be part of the demonstration, we share our buildings and the neighborhood with many pre-existing neighbors. One-half of the intentional Eco-Villagers have moved here in the past year, making the social learning curve steep and occasionally very intense. There is a Resident Building Committee in the larger building that participates in managing the building. Slowly the group is gaining skills to enhance its effectiveness at consensus decision making, conflict mediation, meeting facilitation, and green building. Plans call for intentional residents to acquire the buildings from CRSP for permanently affordable cooperative ownership. We have been working on eco-retrofitting the larger 40 unit building for the past five years. CRSP's Ecological Revolving Loan Fund (ELF) is the project lender for both properties. It has received nearly $1 million from private lenders, and has paid back over $300,000 in the past five years.
In addition to eco-retrofitting, Eco-Villagers have developed gardens around the two buildings. Many of us engage in a variety of local urban planning, environmental and social justice activities. One Eco-Villager, T.H. Culhane, has created a demonstration off-the-grid apartment unit which generates one kw of power. Eco-Village plans to provide a series of workshops with T.H. for others who want to learn about small scale energy independence. We provide public tours twice each month (by reservation for a $10 donation), and there is frequently a short stay unit available for visitors at reasonable rates. We hold special events and workshops. Contact info: The L.A. Eco-Village website site is at <http://www.ic.org>, email is mailto:crsp@igc.org or phone 213/738-1254.What is an Ecovillage?
An ecovillage is an urban or rural community whose members try to provide a high quality lifestyle without taking more from the Earth than they give back. Ecovillages attempt to integrate a supportive social environment with a low-impact way of life. To achieve these aims, ecovillages typically build on various combinations of three dimensions: Community, ecology and spirituality.
If you wish to assess the level of sustainability of your ecovillage, you can use our Community Sustainability Assessment audit (CSA).
1. Community - socially motivated ecovillages
2. Ecology - ecologically motivated ecovillages
3. Spirituality - spiritually motivated ecovillages
Note: Many, though not all ecovillages have the three dimensions represented. As they learn from each other, there seems to be a tendency to integrate each other's values and experiences, and expand their horizons. So even if an ecovillage started with a particular orientation, it often ends up including the other dimensions as well.
General Background
For millenia, people have lived in communities close to nature. Many of these communities, or "ecovillages", exist to this day and are struggling for survival.
In those parts of the world where an indigenous base has been destroyed, ecovillages are now being created intentionally. This way people can once more live in communities that are connected to the Earth in a way that ensures the well-being of all life-forms in the indefinite future.
The problem in our world today is that our planet is experiencing the limits to growth, and that our lives are often lacking social and spiritual content. According to increasing numbers of scientists, we have to learn to live sustainably if we are to survive as a species. Recently, The United Nations launched its Global Environment Outlook 2000 report, based on reports from UN agencies, 850 individuals and over 30 environmental institutes, concluding that "the present course is unsustainable and postponing action is no longer an option."
Ecovillages, by striving for lifestyles which are "successfully continuable into the indefinite future," are living models of sustainability, and examples of how action can be taken immediately. They represent an effective, accessible way to combat the degradation of our social, ecological and spiritual environment. They show us how we can move toward sustainability in the 21st century (Agenda 21).
In 1998 the first ecovillages were officially named among the United Nations' top 100 listing of Best Practices, as excellent models of sustainable living. -- from www.gaia.org.