Our first project is small and will be built slowly and with great sensitivity for a very special environment. We hope to develop it as a model in terms of environmental impact and carbon footprint, but it is not co-housing, just a family home for a big and diverse family, maybe including you. We bought two adjacent lots 20 minutes from downtown Orlando on the Wekiva River one of the seven jewels of Central Florida, in Seminole County. There is a single family home 200 feet from the river which we will expand upon a bit, but only after we have gotten to know our neighbors, joined Friends of the Wekiva, and made plans which are acceptable to all. We will use green building techniques throughout. We plan both rainwater and greywater capture systems, solar water heating and pv panels, reflective roofing, composting toilets, wheelchair accessibility. We will have a dining/rec room for meals and meetings, a library and office, a computer room, a playground, and we will do our best to get off the grid. We will have a grove, workshop, meditation space and greenhouse on our property and will make our area eco-friendly so it can be a model for later and larger projects that are actually co-housing. In all our projects, we will honor and nurture children, elders and the disabled, and welcome diversity of race, culture, gender, age, class, physical or mental ability, sexual orientation, religion, etc.

For details on the general topic of cohousing check out http://www.cohousing.org.
If you want to be part of this community please get to me outside the group at davefinnigan@yahoo.com.

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Other communities will follow. Please stay tuned. Our theme for this project - "Small is Beautiful!"