Maine Today
Ny Tux Turkel
October 1, 2007
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=137411&ac=PHbiz&pg=1
With 170 acres of rolling fields and forest, the fourth-generation dairy farm was being promoted as "absolutely the most ideal parcel in Belfast for housing development ..." But a small group of area residents has a different vision.
In place of a typical, large-lot subdivision, they see 25 affordable, energy-efficient homes clustered on one corner of the property. The homes would face a "common house," where residents could gather for meetings, activities and occasional meals. The rest of the land would be preserved as open space and sold to local farmers, to keep it in production.
This is the vision of the Belfast Area Ecovillage, Maine's latest attempt to create a co-housing community. The group is negotiating with the farm's owner to buy the property.
Co-housing is a collaborative form of living in which residents help design and operate their own small neighborhoods. Homes are individually owned, but buildings are laid out to favor pedestrians and encourage a sense of community and interaction among residents.
First created in Denmark, co-housing is growing in the United States. More than 200 communities have been built or are being proposed. Maine has one existing co-housing community, Two Echo, in Brunswick.
Co-housing is a counterpoint to the evolution and culture of the American suburb, with its car-centered, anonymous design and focus on privacy. Concerns over steep housing prices, energy consumption and dwindling open space contribute to increased interest in the trend.
"It's the right time in society to be looking at how we house ourselves and how we live on the planet," said Sanna McKim, one of the organizers of the Belfast Area Ecovillage.
Successful co-housing, she said, combines the best features of old-time village and extended family life with modern concerns, such as jobs and home ownership. McKim, her two children and her husband, a home builder, now live on 75 rural acres in neighboring Waldo.
McKim's group includes a small-business owner, a doctor and a landscape architect.
They have been meeting weekly for the past six months and are trying to buy land, recruit residents and farmers, and design the community. If all goes well, the first homes will rise in the summer of 2009.
But McKim knows the venture is hardly a sure bet. Other co-housing efforts in Maine have failed in recent years. Finding the right piece of property, attracting members and having the perseverance to slog through an unwieldy process can defeat the best intentions.
Finding land is always a prime consideration. The Belfast group has its eye on the dairy farm, located a mile from downtown. The owners had tried to sell the land and farmhouse years ago for as much as $2.9 million, more recently cutting the price and dividing the land when no buyers emerged.
The group has been unable so far to put the farm under contract, but negotiations were continuing last week, McKim said. At the same time, the group is seeking short-term investors, to help secure the property until it can line up farmers and conservation easements.
Other members are working to design the community and its housing. The goal is to create 25 energy-efficient homes, most of which would sell from $150,000 to $200,000. A few might qualify for state housing subsidies and cost less.
Building homes in this price range that use one-third less energy than conventional housing is a challenge, according to Pat Coon, co-owner of Energyworks, a renewable energy contractor based in Liberty and Portland. Coon is working with McKim's husband, builder Alan Gibson, on a home design that uses prefabricated insulated walls and a slab-on-grade concrete floor with radiant heat.
Coon and his young family want to live in the ecovillage. He came to realize that energy-efficiency is only part of the solution for housing. The next step, he decided, is integrating green design into a shared community.
In designing the ecovillage, the Belfast group has studied other co-housing communities that focus on energy efficiency and sustainable living. One, Cobb Hill in Hartland, Vt., has 23 homes on 260 acres. It features a common house with a kitchen, children's play space and guest rooms. Homes are clustered to preserve open space. Roads and car parking is minimized, and set away from the homes.
Solar hot water, composting toilets and other sustainable technologies are encouraged and homes are warmed by a wood-fired district heating system. The community has cows and a cheese-making operation.
It's possible, though, for co-housing to be successful with smaller aspirations. Two Echo in Brunswick is one example.
Two Echo was formed in 1991; the first residents moved in in 1998. The founders wanted a large parcel of woods and fields with space for recreation and possibly agriculture. They bought an old farm with 92 acres west of Route 1, near the Durham town line, and have set 27 house lots on about 20 of those acres. All but one lot has been sold and developed.
Residents talk from time to time about using the fields for farming, but that hasn't happened, according to Katie Clark, who moved there nine years ago with her family. Hopes of building affordable, energy-efficient homes also gave way to more conventional designs. It also took seven years to raise enough money to build the common house.
But Two Echo is very successful, in many respects.
It has preserved open space in a growing area. It has created a shared community, where residents exchange child care, help with chores and maintenance of the property and generally look out for each other. Residents who choose to can gather once or twice a week for shared meals in the common house.
"You work together," Clark said. "But there's a big piece of you that leads your own life."
Two Echo also seems to be financially successful. It sets aside enough money through fees and contingency funds to plow roads and maintain septic systems, for example. Those details are important when it's time to sell, according to Georgia Breyer, a broker at Morton Real Estate.
Seven homes have changed hands at Two Echo. Breyer sold one last winter, a three-bedroom home for $365,000. Homes at Two Echo are well-regarded by buyers and lenders, she said, but sometimes it takes a little education.
"One of the biggest challenges is having people understand co-housing," she said.
Some people confuse co-housing with a commune, or a cooperative or some other form of shared housing ownership. Breyer has prepared a summary sheet for buyers or lenders with questions. In a legal sense, she said, a co-housing community is little different than any planned unit development.
Breyer currently has a three-bedroom, Cape-style home listed for $340,000. It has been available since June. Potential buyers are expressing interest, despite the housing slump. But co- housing is a niche market, she said, and it can take time for the right buyer to come along.
Co-housing is seeing the greatest growth on the West Coast and in the Northeast, according to Zev Paiss, a consultant in Boulder, Colo., who founded The Cohousing Association of the United States. Residents there seem more accepting of living closer to their neighbors, he said.
Co-housing is evolving in the country, Paiss said, as it becomes more familiar. It's common now for developers to work with co-housing members, rather than members trying to create their own designs. Co-housing projects also are becoming part of walkable, new-urban communities. And as the population ages, elder co-housing projects are emerging to help residents stay in their homes. Sustainable communities formed around green building and agriculture, like the Belfast concept, also are becoming popular, Paiss said.
But finding the right land, capitalizing the project and attracting members remains on ongoing challenge for co-housing advocates in Maine. A project in Edgecomb collapsed, even after members bought property. Another proposal in Hancock County apparently has failed to move forward.
In Belfast, the ecovillage group is planning to hold its first public meeting for interested parties and potential residents on Oct. 21. Details will be listed on the group's Web site, www.mainecohousing.org
But the most important achievement now is coming to terms on the farmland.
"Until you have land or at least an option on the land, it's just a great discussion group," McKim said.
Staff writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or: tturkel@pressherald.com
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