Eco-village in Cloughjordan

Schuhart

Maybe I’m missing the point with this thing.

WORK began yesterday on Ireland's first eco-village. The development, in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary includes houses, apartments and community facilities, which will be powered by local sources.

Most of the homes will be south-facing to take advantage of solar energy for heating water. And much of the water itself will be sourced from harvested rainwater, a first for Irish housing. "There'll be play areas for children, we'll be building using ecologically sustainable materials, setting up an energy system and a water treatment system," said Johnny Connolly of Sustainable Projects Ireland.

Model
"It's a unique development in Ireland, and we hope this will become a model for sustainable developments into the future." Thurles-based Clancy Construction is carrying out the engineering works on the 67-acre farm. Once the infrastructure is complete, the building phase begins.

Houses, some of which include a workspace, as well as apartments and community buildings, will be constructed to the highest ecological standards. After the sod-turning on the land, yesterday's World Earth Day celebrations continue with a presentation by members about the project and its developments, including the available sites and plans for the agricultural and wildlife areas of the land.

What’s the point in building ecofriendly homes in a village? Whatever about the aspiration for ‘economic sustainability’, presumably anyone living in this village will have to go elsewhere to work. So does it just create this illusion of sustainability because you’ve a composting toilet, even if your lifestyle depends on you and/or your neighbours jumping into the car every day to drive 67 miles to Limerick City to earn a living?

There’s a website for the development here. I browsed it, but its really only convinced me of my reservations. One of their newsletters has descriptions of how some of the people intend making a living. One is going to continue working as a taxi driver (very sustainable). Others seem to have ambitions to do alternative health practitioner kind of stuff – which seems to me to depend on either a ****load of punters driving to your door or you driving to a location where there’s a ****load of punters. If it was possible to create a sustainable economy by giving each other vigorous back rubs, I’m sure it would have been done. I’m not convinced either that the twice daily rail service that the website mentions more than once is anything more than windowdressing.

Am I being unnecessarily critical?

Mellor

Schuhart wrote:

Am I being unnecessarily critical?

Yes you are.
Its true that to achieve the most sustainabile way of living one would need to work as close to the home as possible. And I see were you are coming from, but people are living like this anyway, in unsustainabile homes. So building a sustainabile village is a good thing as it improves the homes people live it, which is were most of our energy goes. And people who take the time to move to this place are going to be more likely to work as close as possible to the home. Any improvement is a good thing, even if its not best case scenerio.
I am unfamilar to the full details of the project, but I am familar with similar ones are great successes. Do a search on the BedZED development

Schuhart

Mellor wrote:

I am unfamilar to the full details of the project, but I am familar with similar ones are great successes. Do a search on the BedZED development

But the BedZED project you mention supports my contention, rather than refutes it. As the wikipedia entry says

BedZED was designed by the architect Bill Dunster who was looking for a more sustainable way of building housing in urban areas.

It seems to be located in a London Borough, accessible to substantial public transport. The Cloughjordan location would not look to share that advantage and, as you seem to implicitly acknowledge, just repeats the daft approach to ‘planning’ for which Ireland is famous i.e. just dump it near and road and they can drive. Make sure it’s in a great big field, so you can fit in lots of parking.

This approach is understandable if it’s some eejit building his five toilet bungalow in Mayo with his septic tank leaking into his drinking water. But its rather incredible to see the same (lack of) thinking in what purports to be an ‘eco-village’.

Unless I’m really missing something, this project just looks like more evidence that suggests we really are a nation of gob****es.

Mellor

It has the best intentions, bit probably wont get far. Comparing england will always fair better when it comes to transport,
The original BedZED is in london, but they will build one anywhere if there is enough interest.

As I said the commuting, need to drive everywhere are a problem here, but this project isn't creating them, its just not preventing them.

If the options are living in a town/village/estate, and having to drive everywhere, or
Living in a Eco-town/village/estate, and having to drive everywhere still. Then the eco option is still far better from a sustainabile perspective

Schuhart

Mellor wrote:

Comparing england will always fair better when it comes to transport,

I'm not sure if you're deliberately missing the point. Its in an urban area. Public transport is feasible in urban areas.

Mellor wrote:

As I said the commuting, need to drive everywhere are a problem here, but this project isn't creating them, its just not preventing them.

This project is adding to the commuting problems of the residents at least some of which, according to their newsletters, seem to be moving from cities where they could potentially have a lifestyle that is not car dependent. Its just a bad, superficial conception and looks to be a peculiarly Irish take on the eco-village idea.

I don't think anyone need feel a need to defend it just because its trying to tie itself up in green bunting. This development creates a commuting problem, and will cause downstream problems if it enters people's mindsets that this is a good example of sustainable living.

ardara1

Mellor wrote:

I am familar with similar ones are great successes. Do a search on the BedZED development

Hi Mellor -

BedZed zero-carbon development outside London, published a brochure claiming that “up to half of your annual electric needs can be met by a near silent micro wind turbine”. The turbine he specified has a diameter of 1.75 metres. A few months later Building for a Future magazine, which supports renewable energy, published an analysis of micro wind machines. At 4 metres per second – a high average wind speed for most parts of the UK - a 1.75 metre turbine produces about 5% of a household’s annual electricity(2). To provide the 50% Bill Dunster advertises, you would need a machine 4 metres in diameter(3). The lateral thrust it exerted would rip your house to bits.

It's called 'GREENWASH' - do a search for David Pickles, who stated that that low energy living is 10% technology and 90% lifestyle

Mellor

I never heard that claim about the turbine, 50% not a chance, least not with the small turbine. But they would use alot less power than a normal house, so it might be higher than 5%. But I dont know what.
But they rely on alot more than that, alot of them include lifestyle elements

1. CHP Units
2. Advanced Solar Design
3. Rainwater harvesting
4. Combined living work spaces
5. Locally sourced materials
6. The homes use far less energy than normal houses, I believe the walls are for example 0.1w/m2, and the houses are at passive levels

This is all only off the top of my head, and i might of left some/alot out.
But my point that it is possible, and any improvement is better.

But I take Schuharts comments regarding people moving from cities. I was unaware of that, i was assessing it in relation to people moving in from the locaility.
If it was in a dublin suberb it would be far better.

EcoGirl

Hi, I'm a member of this eco-village, and I'd like to respond to this point. It's a good point is the first thing to say, and if we're doing this project then it's only right that we have an answer for questions like this.

The first thing to say is that we are in no way saying that what we're doing will be perfect/zero carbon etc.

We're just doing our best to make improvements. If everybody made a 10% improvement, or even less, then it would have a big impact on the earth.

Having said that, we WILL be cutting down majorly on commuting. We will be a) working from home/telecommuting as much as possible. In our case, for example, I work from home anyway, and my husband works in IT and will be telecommuting probably 3 days a week, and going up to Dublin for 2 days, staying overnight for that night.

We'll also be using bio-fuel as much as possible.

The train only goes twice a day now, but it's the old chicken and egg, the more demand there is the more service there'll be. There's already a committee in Cloughjordan negotiating with Iarnrod Eireann about this.

Also we'll be organising private bus services, eg to Limerick if people are commuting there.

We'll also be saving a lot of the earth's resources by intelligent building, i.e. taking advantage of passive solar gain as the article mentioned; by building with massive insulation, by having a district heating system run on wood chip (which is much more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels). We'll be growing a lot of our own food to cut down on food miles and so on.

And yes, we'll be running workshops and people will have to travel to come to them. But our aim is to encourage others in ways they can live more sustainably, and we have (and indeed, want) to be the acceptable face of eco-living. If we all lived in yurts with no power and never went anywhere - people would think, well if that's what it takes to be environmentally friendly, I don't want to know. And I wouldn't blame them!

So, I hope this answers your questions. It's a very serious project, run very professionally, you'll be glad to hear.

If anybody's interested there are a very few sites left - details at the website www.thevillage.ie

All best,

EcoGirl

ardara1

Well done EG -

You made you're points well - I think that you've realized and are acting upon the remarks about 90% life style, many seem to think that going green can be bought like any other commodity out there - I wish you and the rest of the community well - I'll keep in touch wih the site.

Mellor

hope it works out EcoGirl,
prehaps keep us updated here.

Schuhart

EcoGirl wrote:

And yes, we'll be running workshops and people will have to travel to come to them. But our aim is to encourage others in ways they can live more sustainably, and we have (and indeed, want) to be the acceptable face of eco-living.

I think this is the bit that worries me. If you spread the message that everyone should build a village in different parts of the country, you'll be broadcasting an unsustainable message. As regards public transport, the volumes would need to increase astronomically to justify more rail. Otherwise, you're really only kidding yourselves. Public transport needs concentration of population.

Sorry to be so negative, but I really don't think you've got a vision for sustainability. I think what you've got is a model that gives comfort to people plonking their pile wherever the mood takes them and deluding themselves that they're being kind to the environment because they'll be driving through open country.

lostexpectation

Schuhart wrote:

Sorry to be so negative, but I really don't think you've got a vision for sustainability. I think what you've got is a model that gives comfort to people plonking their pile wherever the mood takes them and deluding themselves that they're being kind to the environment because they'll be driving through open country.

its an experiment schuhart and some of them will be working from home, I think they have that part of the project down etc, I think they've put huge lot of their own money into and have good flexible jobs.

and thye are revamping an underused villageI gather, better then just some throwing a few houses up, although the thing I found interesting was that village complaining about having to pay or include in the project affordable housing, as far as I can remember they were complaing about having to pay the levy rather then build afforadble homes, it doesnt' very sustainable a project if you can' t include social or afforadable housing in it, even thought guys involved proably arn't that rich and put years and every peny in to it and I guess there reason for not paying the levy would be that it is just a first experiment.

Schuhart

lostexpectation wrote:

its an experiment schuhart and some of them will be working from home, I think they have that part of the project down etc, I think they've put huge lot of their own money into and have good flexible jobs.

I think you're confusing 'they're nice hard-working people' with 'they are doing something that makes sense'.

Do it in Darndale or Myross. That's an experiment that might actually get some respect and really challenge some preconceptions.

mikep

Hi EcoGirl

I have followed this project from day one and I am curious to know(if you don't mind me asking) what you paid for your site and how much did it cost to build your home?

Aslo can you recall what was paid for the land for the village initially??

EcoGirl

Thank you everybody for your interest, and your good wishes.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, Schuhart. But I suppose we feel that if people travel to us (costing fossil fuels) for the sake of learning how to save much more fossil fuels, then it's a reasonable trade off.

By coincidence I received some information today about Findhorn, a similar place in Scotland, and their carbon footprint is only half of the average in the UK. So that would be a good target for us to aim for, and would mean we were still using some fossil fuels.

Yes it's an experiment, to a certain extent (we're following best practice of eco-villages abroad) - and we'll all know in a few years whether it worked or not.

I need to clear up the issue about the social and affordable housing. We are more than happy to have social housing in our Village; indeed we are actively seeking diversity. However, North Tipperary County Council doesn't have any need whatsoever for social housing in Cloughjordan - but they want to charge us the buy-out fee anyway. So, they're charging us a fee for not providing something which we're more than willing to provide, but aren't providing because they don't want it! How mad is that?

And yes, many of our members would not be rolling in money and this extra cost is a concern for them.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to put the financial details, so I won't! Just to say we did get the land for a good price because it was still agricultural land when we bought it - it was us who got the land rezoned for 'sustainable development', and then got the outline planning permission.

The site prices are available from our office www.thevillage.ie if anybody's interested. They range from E50,000 for the site for small flat, up to (I think) just unde E200k for the larger detached sites. This might sound a lot but for that we're getting our share of the communal 40 acres; the sites are serviced with water, sewage, heating pumps etc, and that cost includes a contribution towards the community buildings.

Having said that, this price represents a substantial rise as time has passed and costs have risen, so we're doing fundraising to try to help with that. We're having a brilliant concert on the 4th of May. Details are:

Venue: The Village (appropriately!) Camden St, Dublin 8
Date 4th May
Doors open 7.30 for 8

Line Up: Scullion
Interference
Iarla O'Lionaird
Caoimhin Vallely & friends
Niall O'Callanain & friends
Ropey Karaoke
Caitriona O'Leary

plus guests...

Duncan Stuart will open the event and launch our fundraising campaign.

Tickets available from the WAV box office (1890 200078),
Cultivate in Temple Bar, Sheelagh na Gig in
Cloughjordan.

It'd be great to see you there!

All best,

EcoGirl

Schuhart

EcoGirl wrote:

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, Schuhart. But I suppose we feel that if people travel to us (costing fossil fuels) for the sake of learning how to save much more fossil fuels, then it's a reasonable trade off.

At the end of day, you're doing your think and that's fine. Certainly, you're at least showing an amount of concern about relevant issues - I won't bother repeating what I see as wrong in that approach as I've already made that clear.

Two new points I would niggle over would be whether following best practice in Eco-Villages includes choosing a site in a location that's less than ideal for public transport planning, and whether purchasing land zoned agricultural and seeking planning permission for development is a practice with a particularly proud history in Ireland. If agricultural land is cheaper, there's a reason and that reason has to do with it not appearing in service plans. Local authorities and the State in general isn't exactly brilliant at co-ordinating service provision with increasing population. Part of that problem comes from the planning system being ignored and people just picking a field and saying 'we'll' build here'.

Ditto for social housing. I take it the Council position is that social housing will be needed somewhere in the county. If they're letting you build on agricultural land, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they'd seek a contribution towards the cost of social housing where they do plan for a need.

Apologies, I genuinely started this post with an intention of saying 'you go your way and I'll go mine'. But I really think there's an error in conception with this project.

lostexpectation

Schuhart wrote:

I think you're confusing 'they're nice hard-working people' with 'they are doing something that makes sense'.

Do it in Darndale or Myross. That's an experiment that might actually get some respect and really challenge some preconceptions.

thats partly what I was saying " it doesnt' very sustainable a project if you can' t include social or afforadable housing in it"

I be more impressed if some group took over a cul de sac and transformed and desurbified.

lostexpectation

Schuhart wrote:

At the end of day, you're doing your think and that's fine. Certainly, you're at least showing an amount of concern about relevant issues - I won't bother repeating what I see as wrong in that approach as I've already made that clear.

Two new points I would niggle over would be whether following best practice in Eco-Villages includes choosing a site in a location that's less than ideal for public transport planning,

they have chosen a site specifically with public transport rail link.

lostexpectation

EcoGirl wrote:

Thank you everybody for your interest, and your good wishes.

I need to clear up the issue about the social and affordable housing. We are more than happy to have social housing in our Village; indeed we are actively seeking diversity. However, North Tipperary County Council doesn't have any need whatsoever for social housing in Cloughjordan - but they want to charge us the buy-out fee anyway. So, they're charging us a fee for not providing something which we're more than willing to provide, but aren't providing because they don't want it! How mad is that?

ta for the details, so em do only council can implement social housing? why is there no need? are the type of people who use social housing not wanting to live in country village?

could you not operate your own type of social housing ?

davidoco

While I think it's a worthwhile endeavour for the people involved some of the comments on the web site are a bit wishy washey to say the least.

from The Village http://www.thevillage.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=53&Itemid=184

"It'll be jaw-dropping for other people who live in housing estates to come through here and to realise what your actual daily life is like."


From Daft www.daft.ie/1230702

now that's a jaw dropping village setting close to all amenities


Search on Google Image found this eco village with south facing "shared" gardens.

Bee Bee

I live near Cloughjordan, so I know a bit about this development and I think it's very commendable. The fact that it's located in a village does not necessarily mean the inhabitants have to drive to a city to work. Many people plan to telework or start small businesses in Cloughjordan (some already have) and for those who do need to travel there will be shared transport. Iarnrod Eireann is starting a new commuter service from nearby Nenagh to Limerick next year and there will be buses from Cloughjordan to Nenagh. There are also a lot of advantages to being in a rural area. It makes it more affordable, there is land available to grow food and fuel, it should help regenerate the surrounding area, etc. Also from what I gather the project is not just about being green, it is also about building community. Many people find living in cities alienating and prefer to live in a smaller more "human scale" community.
Even if people there will not be living a zero-carbon lifestyle I don't think you can knock them for trying to live more sustainably and create a better quality of life. Also you've got to remember this is a non-profit development run by the people who will be living there. I think it's great to see people taking control of their own lives in this way, and nobody is being ripped off!

AAM

Here is a recent article about the ecovillage from the Sunday Tribune
http://buckplanning.blogspot.com/2007/06/whole-new-way-of-life-could-eco-through.html

dhaslam

It is strange how the term sustainabilty has become attached to city living instead of country living. Modern cities have many environmental problems, water scarcity, excessive co2 emissions, flooding due to shortage of space to absorb water as well as transport difficulties. They have less pleasant living conditions, more mental health problems and crime. The recent summer flooding in England, for example, cost something like the value of a full years agricultural output for the whole country. This happened because housing there is crowded into river valleys where the main towns are.

In recent years the bigger country towns like Nenagh have been growing at the expense of places like Cloughjordan and nearby Borrisokane. A lot of this has been caused by the idea that people have to be concentrated around industrial centres and industries are only encouraged to move to those towns. One effect of this has been to leave country areas with less population and less than average level of skills. It will be interesting to see how Cloughjordan compares to its neighbours by having a new population of mostly young educated people.

Kelter

hi dhaslam,

what you say about coutr living is true, but only if you look at things on a micro level. The fact is that people ALWAYS do damage to their environment. ALWAYS. Having people spread all over the countryside worked ok when there was a small population, and they did not have the cars/packaged food/toiletries/various luxuries we all demand today. The best way to control the amount of waste/environmental damage our population generate is a controled environment, like a city.

btw. I have lived in both city and country... on and off

OTK

First off, The Village is probably better in many ways than any one-off rural developments and also better than any suburban rural housing. A third of houses built in Ireland are still rural one-offs and we still have low insulation standards. A lot of people seem to be building massively oversized houses that are inherently energy inefficient. That said, there's no harm looking for what 'The Village' have done better.

"The Village" seems to be a suburban development tacked on to a real village. In this way it follows the pattern of development decreed by local councils around the country for the past couple of decades of ending the growth of dense housing in towns and villages and replacing it with sparse housing that encourages car use.

"The Village" could have continued the original development pattern of Cloughjordan with terraced houses laid out in streets with passing traffic. They could have grown the urban core. Instead they went for cul-de-sacs and parking at each site. The density - 7 units per acre - is the level where people drive to buy milk.

The street pattern is a long snake with cul de sac spikes. Problem here is that when Joe Lazy runs out of sausages for his fry and chooses to purchase from Cloughjordan Main street, his route will take him past everyone's house in the estate/village, so everyone shares a bit of his noise, exhaust and everyone's kid is in with a shot at being run over.

"The Village" is a pretty cheeky name. Kind of like "Dundrum Town Centre". I'm surprised the council allows people to take names of existing places and appropriate them for a new development. It's a form of theft of everyone's sense of place. People in Cloughjordan have been going "up the village" for years. And it's not a village; it's a fancy, effing housing estate.

The development seems to rely on people being virtuous and choosing to work locally and walk. Unfortunately people are lazy and when they need to go somewhere they choose the easiest way. the only way to stop them driving is to make it more effort to drive then walk. (or make it too expensive)

What is the growth plan for the village if it works? More housing estate 7/acre stuff? No chance of a walkable dense area with cars kept out?

Bee Bee

OTK, the ecovillage is being built right in the centre of Cloughjordan. None of the houses will be more than 5 minutes walk from the main street. Most will be about 2 minutes walk. There will be no need for people to drive to buy milk.
"The Village" is the name of the cooperative running the project, but the development will not be called "The Village". Each of the streets will have a name, so the addresses will be in the form of house number, street name, Cloughjordan. Anyway we locals refer to Clough as "the town", not "the village" (delusions of grandeur, I know! )

AAM

Yeah, it will be interesting to see how it all works out. It's the first thing of its kind in Ireland so mistakes are bound to be made but overall it seems like a big step in the right direction. I'd say it will be an interesting place to live - as the people who'll be living there are creating it, there's bound to be a very strong community there. wouldn't mind giving it a goo myself if I wasn't so tied to Dublin.

AngryHippie

The development in Cloughjordan must be recognised as the experiment that it is, and as such has huge potential for future improvements.

Unfortunately attracting the likes of Duncan Stewart is a step backwards. Although poor old Duncan means well, he is a clown in a hat. It is his fault and many more like him that have this country in the pickle that it is in.

During the booming years of the Celtic Tiger, there was a massive upsurge in demand for housing, largely due to the fact that there was so much employment (building more houses). The old self inflating bubble. Sadly the incompetence and complete lack of foresight in planning departments of local Authorities countrywide has seen profiteering on an unprecedented scale, and the resultant suburbs without facilities are going to cause our society masive problems in the future. Fact of the matter is that satellite towns without adequate public transport are Ghettoes in the making. Not in the Haarlem sense of the word, but certainly in the Moyross, Battery Heights, Finglas sense.
Suburbs are not a healthy family environment in an economy where both parents are in full time employment just to pay for the 3 bed semi-d that now stands with 300 others in what used to be a quiet rural area outside a small midlands village close to a major road.

The Planners are undereducated, their career path is simple, get into employment in a local authority, learn the ropes of how to fulfill basic policy on density, water supply, roads, overlooking and rights of way, spend a year or two at that, then as soon as possible move to one of the many “planning consultants” around the country. These consultants are basically lobby groups that use their connections with the local planners to dot the I’s and cross the t’s that the local authority get hung up on.

Unfortunately this has led to a situation where many people, living in rural areas, employeed nearby, cannot get planning permission on land that they own, as they are not familiar with how to work the system, meanwhile Bob the local cowboy builder gets permission to build 40 demi-d’s in a bog, beside a village with no school capacity, a clapped out sewerage system and no public transport, subject to the conditions that 10 of the 40 houses are socially affordable. “grand” says Bob as he throws up 40 sub-standard houses, half finishes the approach roads and kerbs, gets a bunch of cheap labourers to landscape the place, and boys, does he laugh on his way to the bank the day the local chump that was refused permission takes the keys and looks in amazement at the “snaglist” that was glossed over.

How well Bob may laugh, now the house is worth 30 grand less than our poor chump paid for it, even if he could sell it, some nutjob has moved in next door and started breeding horses in his back garden, not exactly a selling point.
Is it Bobs fault ?
Is it the Planners fault ?
Is it the poor local suckers fault ?

The majority of the blame lies with the planner, They clue is in his job title. He should have known exactly what was going to happen, and to be honest any of the good ones would have, but there are precious few, and the few are so busy trying to make a few bucks before the whole job goes tits up, they just don’t have time for social consequences. They have to work fast, or god forbid, they’ll end up rearing their kids in a housing estate…….

At least Cloughjordan forced a few planning fingers out of developers arses

But that’s just my opinion