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The biggest dreams take baby steps to get started.
So a group of local people who like the idea of living together in a community in an eco-friendly manner have started meeting regularly to discuss the future.
“We’re a group of people who are interested in creating a planned, affordable and environmentally friendly housing community,” said Veronika Muendel, co-founder of Lethbridge Eco Co-Op Housing.
She and co-founder Gilles Leclair have been busy recruiting a dedicated core group of interested people interested in making this dream come true.
“It’s co-operative housing which would be based on environmentally sound principles,” Leclair said.
He envisions a place where the members live together, off the power grid and growing their own food.
“I lived in a co-operative housing in Calgary and I liked the community that was created. It was created to help end homelessness and I thought it would be kind of neat if we could do something like this in Lethbridge but with more of an environmental bend,” Muendel said. While there are housing co-operatives in Lethbridge, she said none have an environmental focus. She liked the idea of community where the neighbours know each other and share duties such as childcare.
And while they like different aspects of the idea, their visions are pretty compatible.
The Lethbridge Eco Co-Op Facebook group has 66 members; however, Leclair estimated they have approximately a dozen active members.
The members meet monthly for a potluck to share their ideas with each others and have gone on field trips, including one out to Picture Butte to explore an eco-friendly house built out of straw bales.
They have attracted the interest of community organizations including SACPA as well as SHIA (Social Housing in Action). They will be making a presentation to the latter on Aug. 16.
But the group is still in the embryonic stages, so they are looking for members and are still seeking information as well as funding. The next step is to bring in speaker Lynn Hannley from an Edmonton-based organization called Communitas which develops such projects.
According to the Communitas’ website, Hannley is the managing director of The Communitas Group Ltd. She has been involved in the development of 59 housing projects, serving a broad range of incomes, whose total value exceeds $300 million and provides housing for 2,070 households. Hannley has provided development services to worker co-operatives and community based co-operatives. Hannley has also been involved in research in the area of housing, education, community and co-operative economic development, health systems and social programs and policies.
Muendel enjoyed spending three years in Ramsay Heights, one of 10 Calgary housing co-ops.
“You really get to know your neighbours. We were all living in townhouses and we had a common area,” she described.
And while there is some discussion about where such a facility would be located, either within the city or just outside of it, much work needs to be completed before they even examine that decision.
Leclair got some ideas for a Lethbridge eco co-op after living in a kibbutz in Israel.
“People are interested in self-sufficiency. They are interested in food production and a pedestrian-friendly type of layout. And shared childcare,” Leclair observed about the members’ interests.
There is also some thought being given to alternative forms of housing such as earth ships, which are a type of home built with tires filled with sand.
“It could be a problem in Canada because of the temperature, but we did visit a house built of straw bales,” he said.
“We’re looking at different alternatives but there is a lot of ground work that still has to be done.”
He noted ideally they’d like to be breaking ground or starting renovations of an existing building within three years.
“Personally what I’d like to see is a little village of about 100 people strong being self-sufficient and living off the grid and maybe putting some back into it, maybe some small employment opportunities within it. Either within Lethbridge, which could be difficult to to do because of land prices, or just outside of it,” Leclair said.
Muendel said her vision differs slightly.
“I envision more of a co-op of 30 or 40 with people living in their own community, working and living together, taking care of children together and just being there for each other. I really like the community aspect of it,” she continued.
“The more people understand about it, the more they will be willing to jump in,” Leclair added.
For more information, look up the Lethbridge Eco Co-Op Housing Facebook group. |
