TOGETHER ON THE LAND: Options for Sustainable, Affordable & Ecological Living in Community

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Megan McDonough

Valley Community Land Trust

413-218-0683 or 413-624-5128

McDonough.megan@gmail.com

www.VCLT.org/Tour

TOGETHER ON THE LAND

Options for Sustainable, Affordable & Ecological Living in Community

MULTI-SITE GUIDED TOUR

8:30am-5pm Sunday September 11, 2011

Pioneer Valley Massachusetts

$20 per ticket, discounts & scholarships available

Pre-Registration Required at VCLT.org

Co-sponsored by:

Cooperative Development Institute, Co-op Power, Equity Trust, Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust & Valley Community Land Trust

Northampton, MA – Many people in the Pioneer Valley have shared an apartment or developed informal neighborhood communities, but few could explain the differences between co-ops, condos, and cohousing.

A group of local non-profits involved in community-based housing, affordable housing and land conservation have teamed up to organize a guided tour of several locations throughout the Pioneer Valley where residents and supporting organizations are creating affordability, sustainability and community.

The third annual Together on the Land Tour highlights long-standing and new examples of housing and land ownership that tackle tough questions about the problems and benefits of green and affordable housing, community involvement and interdependence. These examples cover a range of approaches for sharing resources between neighbors, providing onsite gardening, ensuring permanent home and farm affordability, permanently protecting land, plus other solutions to the problems of living together on the land.

The stops on this tour include:

• 
  A manufactured housing park that is now a resident owned co-operative (Quabbin Sunrise Cooperative – Ware, MA);
• 
  A farm addressing the need for permanently affordable farm housing and land tenure (Red Fire Farm – Granby & Montague, MA);
• 
  An established cohousing community with a common house, walkable multi-generational community and energy efficient homes (Rocky Hill Cohousing – Northampton, MA);
• 
  An urban community land trust helping to keep housing affordable by removing the cost of land from the cost of housing (Holyoke Community Land Trust, Holyoke, MA); and
• 
  A small cluster of homes that were built with lots of volunteer labor and meet high energy efficiency standards (Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity, Amherst, MA)

Register online at www.vclt.org/tour. Information from tour co-sponsors will be available at the tour and online. Those who can not participate in the tour are encouraged to be in touch with cosponsoring organizations with questions.

Special Thanks:

• Collective Copies Print Shop for their donation of copying services for tour flyers and handouts. Collective Copies was founded in 1983 by recently unionized workers from a long-gone copy shop. Committed from the start to worker-ownership and collective decision-making, Collective Copies remain the only worker-owned cooperative copy center in the nation. http://www.collectivecopies.com
• River Valley Market for their donation towards snacks for the event. River Valley Market is a communityowned, full-service grocery store specializing in fresh, local and organically grown food. We offer fresh produce; meat & seafood; groceries; a deli with homemade soups, a hot and cold bar, sushi, house-made pastries, desserts, and organic, fair-trade coffee; gifts; and a complete wellness department. http://rivervalleymarket.coop/
• The Valley Advocate for their media sponsorship. The Valley Advocate is a free weekly magazine that provides news, arts & entertainment information for the Pioneer Valley. http://www.valleyadvocate.com/

Co-Sponsors include:

• Cooperative Development Institute (CDI) is the Northeast's center for cooperative business education, training and technical assistance. CDI's mission is to build a vibrant co-operative economy through the creation and development of successful co-operative enterprises in diverse communities in New England and New York. http://www.cdi.coop/
• Co-op Power is a multi-class, multi-racial movement for a sustainable and just energy future, with regional councils in Southern VT, Boston, Franklin County, Hampshire County, and Hampden County.
  http://www.cooppower.coop/
• Equity Trust is a small, national organization that provides education, technical assistance, and financing to farmers, land trusts, and community groups working to save farms and to create affordable housing. Equity Trust’s programs support ownership structures that balance the needs of individuals with the needs of the community, the earth, and future generations.
  http://www.equitytrust.org/
• Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust protects significant natural, agricultural, and scenic areas and encourages land stewardship in North Central and Western Massachusetts for the benefit of the environment, the economy and future generations. In 25 years Mount Grace has protected nearly 25,000 acres of farmland, forestland, water resources, and wildlife habitat.
  http://www.mountgrace.org/
• The Valley Community Land Trust (VCLT) is a non-profit organization that holds title to land, considering it neither as private nor public property, but as a sacred resource to be held in trust for present and future generations. Land held in trust by VCLT is made available to the community for affordable housing and sustainable agriculture. http://www.vclt.org

Contacts from tour sites and co-sponsoring organizations are available for pre-event interviews. Free tickets available for Media Representatives who would like to cover the tour. Please contact Megan for details! 413-218-0683 or info@vclt.org.

##

Bunker Hill Community Cooperative Purchases the 14-home Bunker Hill

Press garnered about this story:

• Valley News newspaper: http://www.vnews.com/07262011/7941365.htm
• WPTV tv news: http://www.wptz.com/r/28673441/detail.html
• WCAX tv news: http://www.wcax.com/story/15152251/how-residents-kept-their-mobile-home-park-from-closing

Windsor, VT – Nearly half a year after receiving news that their community was likely to be shut down forever, homeowners at Bunker Hill Mobile Home Park are now celebrating taking ownership of their community on June 30, 2011. The community’s land and facilities are now owned and democratically operated by Bunker Hill Community Cooperative (BHCC), an association comprised of all of the park’s residents. BHCC is the third resident-owned mobile home park in the state of Vermont, and the first new co-op in almost twenty years.

“At first, when our park was at risk of being shut down, I looked at this glass as being half empty, now it's overflowing,” states Bunker Hill resident and co-op member Barbara Adams. Co-op President Dave Furman adds that this recent resurgence of optimism and pride has already made a mark on the community: “The formation of the co-op has brought everyone closer together, almost like a family. Everyone has been working hard on the grounds, and in the units, taking pride in the community”.

Yet, the path to resident ownership was not an easy nor certain one. When the park’s former owner, Rockingham Community Land Trust (RACLT), sent out a notice of their intent to shut down the community back in October, 2010, Bunker hill residents were given three options: Work with RACLT to obtain relocation money in the form of a state grant, wait and hope for another nonprofit to purchase the property, or look into the feasibility of resident ownership. Intent on saving their homes, Bunker Hill residents ventured into what is unfamiliar territory in Vermont and investigated the feasibility of resident ownership. To this end, Bunker Hill residents enlisted the services of two technical assistance providers, the Vermont-based Mobile Home Project of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) and the Massachusetts-based Cooperative Development Institute (CDI).

RACLT indicated that they believed the costs of running the aging community were too high and cited the location of the community in a flood zone. Under a grant from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, CDI completed an independently reviewed feasibility study that showed that a residents’ cooperative could in fact continue to operate the community affordably. This feasibility study now forms the basis of an operating plan that, combined with the ongoing technical assistance and training provided by both CVOEO and CDI, will ensure that the residents’ cooperative will remain successful for years to come.

And success at Bunker Hill not only benefits the 14 families residing there who get to keep their homes. According to CVOEO’s Mobile Home Project Program Director Shaun Gilpin, “this cooperative is a success not only for the community in Windsor, but for mobile home communities throughout the state as we hope to help usher in a model of community ownership that has worked so well elsewhere in the country and fits well with Vermont values of independence and strong communities.”

Mobile home cooperatives are democratic associations in which homeowners in the community each buy one low-cost share, and have one vote on matters of the community. The members elect a Board of Directors to act on day-to-day issues and vote as a membership on larger matters like the annual budget, By-laws and Community Rules.

The CVOEO Mobile Home Project (MHP) is a private non-profit that assist residents of mobile homes throughout Vermont. The MHP is the only non-profit in the state that works exclusively with residents of mobile homes and assists residents with community organizing, understanding and exercising their rights under Vermont law and accessing resources to better their standard of living.

CDI is a Regional Cooperative Development Center, founded in 1994, which has assisted dozens of new and existing cooperatives throughout New England and New York. CDI is a certified technical assistance provider with ROC USA, a national nonprofit organization that works to help residents of mobile home parks form democratically-run associations and buy their parks. CDI is working with the residents of 14 mobile home communities throughout New England. CDI is not only involved with manufactured housing but provides technical assistance to agriculture, consumer, worker-owner, energy, and fishing cooperatives.

Financing was secured through Icarus Social Capital LLC of Foxborough, Massachusetts to purchase and rehabilitate the residents’ community. Secondary Financing was provided by the Vermont Community Loan Fund and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board.