Dear Friends of the Hart’s Mill Community,
With colder weather settling in and gardening on the land over for the season, it’s time to pause and look back on this year for which we give many thanks. What a truly spectacular year it has been for Hart’s Mill! Much movement forward and several hurdles behind us. It seems like the perfect time to be in touch with our more distant friends and members, to review the status of the Hart’s Mill Ecovillage project as 2013 quiets down, and to share some plans for 2014. So… warm greetings to each of you!
HART’S MILL MILESTONES
After years of dreaming and planning, Hart’s Mill has reached the critical stage of actually purchasing a beautiful tract of land and hiring planning and engineering consultants to guide us through the site development process. Exciting times!
How did we get here? Here are the headlines.
Members: An active core group of visionaries came together in early 2013. Through many potlucks, work days, celebrations, circle meetings, socializing, plain hard work, we’re building commitment to each other and this work. We’ve also been graced by many visitors who have worked alongside us.
Land purchase: We signed an option contract on November 27, 2013, to purchase 111.5 acres of fields, forest, and wetland from land-owner and Ecovillage member, Alana Ennis.
Roadway access: We’re soon to complete a purchase contract with an adjacent landowner to give us public roadway access to the land. Now that this parcel has been secured, we can move forward with building the community.
Engaging with the land: We held 10 workdays in 2013. We established our first community garden and have kept it happy and productive. More critical for the long term, these festive events served to build what Diana Leafe Christian aptly calls “community glue”. We produced a lot, and are hungry for more.
Cedar Pavilion: Thanks to Anthony for his clever design and wood-working skills we erected our first building on the land. This lovely open-air structure near our fire circle now serves as the perfect meal-sharing and occasional meeting and planning space. The Pavilion roof functions to collect rainwater for our rain barrels and thirsty garden, and it thankfully provides shelter from the occasional summer shower. Cedar Pavilion also provides an effective space for folks who wish to spend a star-lit night on the land. We all tested our carpentry skills during the construction of this splendid addition to the community.
Governance: Hart’s Mill has adopted Sociocracy to maximize effectiveness, equivalence, and transparency. It is serving us well to guide the many decisions reached this past year.
Legal structure: Hart’s Mill, LLC, has been established to steer the development process. We finalized our Operating Agreement on November 5th and are moving forward with financing the next phase.
Site concept planning: before the end of the year, we will participate in developing a site concept plan. The goal is to have in place an initial plan in early 2014 to bring to Orange County to initiate the formal discussions regarding land use and permitting processes.
The next year promises to be dynamic and formative for Hart’s Mill Ecovillage. Though our membership has doubled over the past year, at this stage in our young life, we need to grow. We continue to benefit from additional numbers and – it must be said emphatically – also from deeper appreciation for the dreams, enthusiasm and skills each one of us brings to the effort. Since we are no longer just an aspirational community, several details for joining, affiliating and working with the Hart’s Mill Ecovillage Community are being clarified. Over the next few weeks we will hold events to encourage some of our Exploratory Members to move into the Associate Member category. Nurturing our members is viewed as critically important, and we have not given sufficient attention to this task, as other time-sensitive chores have intervened. Our first event for this new outreach is a large gathering planned for December 7th.
Acknowledgements: This past year’s activities and accomplishments have been pushed forward by the energy and talents of a dedicated core group: Katy, Amy, Lorna, Hope, Johanna, James, Paul, and Anthony. We stand on the shoulders of earlier founders such as Christian and Linda. And of course, none of this would be possible without our visionary land owner, Alana.
