LiveNearLewes www.livenearlewes.org.uk An exciting collaborative housing project near Lewes, East Sussex | |
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We are a group of people local to Lewes looking for a site to create a model of practical sustainable collaborative housing. If successful this project would redefine expectations for all housing developments and serve as a gold mine of opportunities relevant to every street in the region. Please get in touch if you can help. Collaborative housing (or cohousing) involves buying land (possibly including existing buildings) together with other families (or individuals or couples). The site would then be divided among the purchasers into both private accomodation/gardens and shared space such as a meeting room, ofice, workshop, rented units and grounds. The actual shared space would depend on the site and the purchasers. Every purchaser would get their own front door. We anticipate between 6 and 10 purchasers may take part with a total project cost between £1200 000 and £2500 000. Hence the aim is to spend a similar amount per home as for a conventional purchase but to gain the benefits of added community, sustainability and the shared space. The group's shared vision for the project is to create levels of community and sustainability that are just not achievable with individual house purchases. We are keen to try some activities which are more feasible when more people take part, such as keeping chickens, growing flowers fruit and veg, car-sharing and on-site renewable energy. The project would include building new houses, perhaps using woodframes, straw bales and rammed earth. Any existing buildings would be ecologically refurbished or rebuilt. We expect that by involving just a few purchasers the joint decision-making will be simplified both during the purchase and afterwards. We anticipate that the broad vision and exemplary sustainability standards will be supported by planners aware of the urgent need for practical demonstrations of carbon-neutral and sustainable communities. See also on this site: External links: This page was updated 15/01/06.
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