New Hampshire Governor visits state's only cohousing neighborhood
Submitted by Cohousing Coaches on Thu, 07/23/2009 - 05:59
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By Raines Cohen, Cohousing Coach
According to story in today's Union Leader, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch yesterday toured Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm, the state's first completed cohousing neighborhood.
He wasn't the first New Hampshire Governor to walk the Peterborough property, though: the community was built in 2008 on the historic homestead of Gov. John Steele (1789-1865), and the basement of his renovated now super-insulated home (now offices) houses the ultra-efficient renewably-fueled wood-pellet-burning boilers that circulate heat and supply hot water to the 29 homes clustered onto just five of the 113 acres, preserving extensive woods and farmland, the story notes.
Two of the community's developers, Shelley Goguen Hulbert and her husband Robin Hulbert, lobbied the Governor for incentives, legal and financial, to make community living, green building, and farm preservation more feasible; nearly a third of the community's homes remain unsold in the wake of the housing-market/finance crisis sweeping the state and the country.
When I toured the Nubanusit site (coincidentally just 24 hours earlier; partial video below), I was impressed by not just the green building (including a rare LEED™ Platinum-certified model home), but the proximity to cows, pigs, and chickens, preparing a field for growing vegetables, naturally. One flock of chickens provides eggs; another consumes compost and may make an appearance as part of future common meals in the luxurious common house. A newly-built barn out past the carports provides space for "co-horsing," with room to roam.
Several other established U.S. cohousing neighborhoods incorporate farm preservation, including:
- Cobb Hill EcoVillage (Hartland, VT)
The Common House supports farmworker housing and operations of allied sustainability projects; some community members participate in farm-related businesses - Ithaca EcoVillage (NY)
Two built cohousing neighborhoods and a third under development support a farm - EastLake Commons (Decatur, GA)
- Champlain Valley Cohousing (Charlotte, VT)
In addition to hosting a commercial farm up front, some members share in raising a milk cow and its calf out back of their homes, now with an Alpaca to keep them company. - Alchemy Farm (E. Falmouth, MA)
Some cohousing in the early stages of development comes with ambitious visions of farm preservation. Ryegate Commons (VT) hopes to keep an organic dairy farm operating (a challenge by itself in today's economy, with feed prices rising and milk prices dropping)
Many other built communities incorporate community gardens; although these typically provide only a small fraction of the community's common and individual-household food, they can serve strong social and other roles. More-urban communities without the extensive land required for farming subscribe to Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms and/or act as distribution points.
How does your community relate to farming and food production? What's your vision for green community? Log in (it's free) to share in the Comments, below.
Related pages: The Cohousing Movement, Cohousing Development, Cohousing Developers, Affordability, Design, Gardens, Green Built, Marketing, Solar, Construction
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Additional notes on visiting Nubanusit; cohousing + farm = ???
(excerpted from a comment I submitted to the Union Leader; if you think you have something that would get readers there more interested, please share it there as well as here on cohousing.org --Raines)
I just toured Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm myself on Tuesday, and was mightily impressed by the thought, care, and green priorities that went into the design and building of the community, while sharing the concern about the fundamental economics of these projects in today's market.
I was impressed by the former Governor's Mansion's basement turned into community boiler-room, quietly generating heat and hot water that circulates through the community. I enjoyed the solid feel that comes from tightly-sealed, well-engineered ultra-insulated homes, including the LEED Platinum-certified model there... and that I could see cows, pigs, and chickens from the window, preparing a field for planting in their inimitable natural fashion.
Until the "true costs" to the environment and our communities of burning coal, relying on the last few drops of oil in the ground, boosting global climate change, and covering farms with traffic-inducing sprawling development are reflected through targeted incentives and financing, these projects will look pricey.
Yet, what other New Hampshire neighborhood can you provide hot water and heat for a family of four for under $1,000 a year -- using renewable wood-pellet fuel, uninterrupted by last year's ice storms? The available mortgages don't yet reflect the lower cost-of-living possible in this sort of green development, let alone the community benefits.
Where else can you gather together with neighbors for regular meals yet still enjoy the privacy of your own kitchen? Save on hours of driving for (let alone scheduling) playdates for kids, or keeping out of nursing homes through supportive neighbors helping us maintain independence as we age?
Monday night I was in Lyme, leading a discussion at Loch Lyme Lodge about "Aging In Community," helping people thinking about living in cohousing there look at the issues of how they can be less dependent on driving -- not just to save money, or to reduce emissions -- but to stay safer and live more independently as they get older.
I've visited more than three quarters of the nearly 120 up-and-running cohousing neighborhoods in the U.S., and found only a few that combine the energy efficiency and farm preservation of Nubanusit. Cobb Hill up just across the border in Hartland, VT is a leading example; Champlain Valley Cohousing in Charlotte includes a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, as do communities in Ithaca, NY and Atlanta, GA. A forming group in Ryegate I visited Monday has ambitious visions of preserving a dairy farm while building community along a trail strategic for George Washington. Just yesterday I got to walk through the future home of a community south of Albany, NY, where member investment will help preserve a farm that's been organic for 100 years.
As Governor Lynch noted, encouraging more of these sorts of developments in New Hampshire can have enormous mutually-reinforcing benefits for the environment... and for our own lives.
Raines Cohen, Cohousing Coach
Planning for Sustainable Communities
Berkeley, California