Sustainable Communities & EcoDevelopments
Eco-Development and Sustainable Communitites may seem like new ideas, but good community development has always focused not just on economic factors, but also how to work “with nature” while meeting human vision and values.
Personally, I have been fortunate to work with ”aware” developers and community planners over the last 30 years assisting in the creative design of a number of ecological developments. These developments inherantly were sustainable, because they were partnered with nature and supported a shared vision for the community.
This site is being developed to “show and tell” good developments and bring ecologically minded buyers and developers together.
Please visit back as we add other Communities and Resources around the world.
If you are a developer and have built or wish to build an ecological, equestrian or sustainable community and would like to be included in this network or are interested in services, please contact me at maryann@maryannsimonds.com or call at 1 (360) 573-1958
If you know of ecological and sustainable communities that would like to be listed, please let me know.
Here are some of the projects I recently have been or am involved with:
Village of Blume, Charlotte, NC
Bob Taylor was a traditional developer who made the economic and ecological decision to build a new type of community -one with both human and nature’s values in mind. We met with neighbors and other potential stakeholders and gathered lots of information to determine the viability of this project. It is well on its way to being a model for “eco-sustainable” community development where nature and people can live and work together.
Rancho Hidalgo/ Granite Gap/Estrellas Verde
A Florida developer who chased the best night skies in the US to build a community around star gazing, Gene Turner builds unusal communities and he is not afraid to take on new ideas and concepts. So embracing a sustainable rural model for community development gets him excited. Gene and his team have several developments underway in SW New Mexico and SE Arizona.
From making wine to “birding”, riding to star gazing, growing food to building adobe homes, these eclectic communities will offer opportunities for people to be inovled in community development and are based around on-going education, learning, and exploration for interacting with nature on many levels.
Saddle Ridge Lake Placid/Sebring, Florida
Developed a Kibbutz model to reflect the ecological model in terms the developers would relate to and they “ran with it”. Literally. Not involved in the project at this point, but did all the concept development which seems to have “stuck”.
Ocean Mountain Ranch, Oregon
Terry Mock has been developing sustainable communities all of his life from Florida to Washington and co-founded Sustainable Land Development International to help educate and encourage other land development professionals to work with nature. A tree lover since his childhood, Terry has also worked to preserve ancient “Champion” trees around the country. Ocean Mountain Ranch, Terry’s current community development is located along the Southern Oregon Coast and is blending “nature, tradition, and economics for a sustainable future.”