Nearly every ecovillage or cohousing neighborhood has experienced it, and now we have too – neighbors who fear the worst. Last week sometime a sign was put on our proposed land with the following message:
Wake Up London Grove
No Ecovillage, No Septic? No Commune
It will co$t London Grove!!
Not here!
A friend and supporter of ours pulled it out of the ground and brought it to us, knowing that the accusations were far off target from what we plan. We’re fine with open dialog and debate with anyone who doesn’t understand or even disagrees with our approach to building a neighborhood. Seeing this sign, however, was really discouraging. We have a detractor who doesn’t understand what we are planning or what we are about, yet who has imagined and fears the worst.
The bottom line is that we want to be good and helpful neighbors to all of West Grove and London Grove. In fact, we’re very interested in feedback from the community. One future neighbor on Thistle Court expressed concern about the “Natural Pool” (naturally filtered swimming pool) that was shown against his property line in our earliest Concept Sketch. He didn’t specifically request it, but we moved it away from his property. No problem. Also, partially because of concerns about obstructing views to the homes north of the property, our plan is place all of our homes further down the hill, preserving the pristine meadow to the north. Not everything will be so easy, but we do want to work with our future neighbors to create a win-win solution. We’re not a typical big-wig development company who wants to sell big houses, make big profit, and move on to the next town. We’re future residents who would like to be friends, neighbors, and supporters of the community.
In that neighborly spirit, and knowing that the negative reaction is based on misunderstanding, now is a great time to clarify what we plan. Since the creator of the sign didn’t discuss his or her concerns directly with us, I will have to assume that his/her concerns are similar to other conversations or questions we’ve had. Let me try to address them based on the phrases in the sign.
“No
Septic?” OK, this one is true. We don’t want to use septic systems; we want
to do better than that. Modern plumbing is really cool and I won’t live without
it. You sit in comfortable and private surroundings, finish your business,
flush, and the “problem” goes away…right? In truth, a septic system simply
re-locates the “problem” to an underground tank where the solids settle but the
liquids drain into the earth via a “leach field”. In principle, pollutants and germs are
removed by biological activity in the few feet before the waste water reaches
the shallow ground water, but in practice septic sytems have contributed to highly polluted groundwaters throughout the country. Public sewer mixes the “problem” with a lot of water,
pumps it across town, treats it biologically and chemically, and then typically dumps it into the nearest stream or river.
The direct economic costs of municipal sewage treatment are
considerable, but the indirect economic costs of polluted streams and rivers is probably higher.
We want to be responsible for our own “problems”. Just as the septic system was a vast improvement over the outhouse, Constructed Wetlands are a vast improvement over the septic system. These systems drain the liquid waste from a settling tank through a series of lined, gravel-bed rooting zones of wetland plants, where naturally occurring “good” microbes and plant roots break-down wastes and take up the excess nutrients. The wastewater is always 1-2 feet below ground and can not leak. There is no smell. The result is that water is purified to levels that are cleaner than local streams and groundwater (it’s nearly drinkable) before it is released, usually via subsurface irrigation to landscaping. No septic system, and few municipal sewage treatment plants, will match that; we are setting our standards very high. We are aware that most people are not familiar with this technology, but the state is advocating it, and in fact, has given a grant to the Stroud Water Research Center to build the first one in our area. We understand that approvals will have to be given, but we’re willing to go to bat for the area’s groundwater.
“No
Commune.” If I thought a Commune was
moving in next door, I’d be pretty frightened, too. Images of unemployed
hippies, tin shacks, free love, rampant drug use, loud music, and hordes of
mud-covered children come to mind. However, even if we use less imaginative
definitions of Communes, and simply talk about pooled resources, shared labor,
and commonly held property, it’s still not a model that we’re interested in. To reiterate specific points that we’ve made
before:
Homes will be privately owned, either as Fee Simple or using a Condominium model. Projected house prices are comparable to or higher than the surrounding houses, starting at about $175,000 for a 1-bedroom, and going up to about $385,000 for a 4-bedroom. The price points obviously necessitate gainful employment or other resources.
The Club House and most of the land will be owned by a Home Owners’ Association, just like many developments in the area.
Paychecks will be retained by those who earn them. A quarterly fee will be paid to the Homeowner’s Association for maintenance of the Club House, insurance, and other expenses.
As we generally state in our presentations: “No shared houses, no shared spouses.” Although we’re positive that none of our future neighbors had to assure others on their choice of hobbies, we’re clearly stating for the record that we’re not interested in “alternative arrangements”.
We do anticipate gathering in the Club House for community dinners a few times a week, and rotating responsibility for cooking those meals or other duties. However, this is not a requirement. Rather, it is a way to help us get to know people and to re-create that sense of community that our pioneering forefathers had, but that seems gone from much of today’s world. I’d be delighted if our future neighbors in the surrounding community joined us for dinner, too.
“It will co$t London Grove.” This one is a little harder to figure out, but I think it is related to the hordes of mud-covered children produced by the hippies practicing free love. The question of whether we wanted to attract families with children did come up at the last Board of Supervisors meeting, and there is legitimacy to the question. School taxes are assessed based on the value of the home, and each child in the home costs a certain amount to educate. If a low-value home has many children, it produces a loss in the budget for London Grove. The most profitable thing for London Grove is to only allow high-end 50+ or retirement communities, where the number of children is limited and the homes have high value.
How many children do we expect to have in our community? Let’s put on our Statistician Hat for a moment. If we look at Census records we find that Pennsylvania averages 0.83 children per household, or 1.85 children per household with children. That is, any randomly selected household has 0.83 children, but once it is established that a household has children, the average is 1.85 children. Setting aside visions of partial children, if we build our desired 34 homes, that would work out to 28.2 children in the community. However, because our Ecovillage wants diversity of incomes and ages, we will be offering 1, 2, 3, and 4 bedroom houses. It’s my personal theory that families with children would be attracted at average rates to homes with 3-4 bedrooms, and at much less than average rates to homes with 1-2 bedrooms. If we assume 0.83 children for each of 22 larger homes, and .2 children for each of 12 smaller homes, we come out with 20.7 children. That’s only about 75% of the children that would be expected in the typical neighborhoods around us. Furthermore, because our home values will be higher than the median home around us, we’ll be paying more in school taxes. In truth, I think our Ecovillage would be a benefit to the tax base as far as home value and school taxes go.
I’ve gotten a bit long-winded, but I hope that I’ve addressed some concerns that seem to be out there. Please let me know if I haven’t!
- We want to do better than septic systems.
- We’re really not hippies or a commune.
- We probably would be a plus to the tax base rather than a minus.
So, as Mr. Rogers sang, “Please, won’t you be my neighbor?”
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