Stories from our intentional community
Hempcrete is relatively new to Australia with less than 50 houses using this sustainable building material in the whole country. Not only does it come from a renewable resource, using the stem of the hemp plant, but it provides a much healthier home due to it’s high breathability. good thermal and acoustic insulation breathable walls avoiding moisture build-up which prevents …
Our standards seek an outcome based on inclusive decision making, good design, good health and the well being of all community members. They encourage small and inexpensive houses knowingly designed to provide thermal comfort, low water use and low energy consumption. The standards also seek innovation from community members in the design of their homes and the use of recycled …
One of the pleasant tasks of life at the ecovillage is maintaining and regenerating the native bushland on the property. The village is situated next to the renowned Strickland State Forest, and forms with it an unbroken corridor of forest on ridge-land and slopes down into the Narara Valley. A volunteer team meets weekly to go into the forest and …
Cohousing is a model of residential light footprint planning that blends private space with shared resources. It originated in Denmark in the 1960’s and was adopted enthusiastically in America and the UK. Interest is now growing in Australia and innovative housing projects in both urban and rural environments, are drawing on the core elements of successful cohousing developments around the …
According to the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) website: An ecovillage is an intentional, traditional or urban community that is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes in all 4 dimensions of sustainability (social, culture, ecology, economy)into a whole systems design to regenerate its social and natural environment. Ecovillages are living laboratories pioneering beautiful alternatives and innovative solutions. They are rural or urban settlements …
We get asked a lot of questions about the way things work at Narara Ecovillage. Here’s a list of out top FAQs and the answers, in case they’re helpful for you too. Please note that you should not rely on these informal answers for any legal or financial matters. The formal legal documents of the Co-operative are the Disclosure Statement, …
What a privilege to have Angus Stewart and Tino Carnevale From ABC’s Gardening Australia visit Narara Ecovillage for our Mad About Dirt event, supported by the Central Coast Council. “Mad About Dirt” was a project of the Narara Eco Living Network Inc. Many thanks to Sam Freeman for making this video. More on the Mad About Dirt Event
It’s taken 20 years to get here, but, as the first houses are being completed, Lyndall Parris’ dream is finally coming to fruition. Lyndall has this month launched her memoirs, which tell the story of her life path leading her to establish the Narara Ecovillage. This Ecovillage, like all projects that seek to step away from the status quo, started as a series …
Narara Ecovillage aims to be self-sufficient for energy needs. The Ecovillage will continue to be connected to the wider energy grid, providing the opportunity to earn revenue by exporting unused surplus energy from PV panels. Another ongoing project is considering how the Ecovillage can continue to energise the Smart Grid during power outages in the wider energy grid. This will …
For the last 6 months, a troop of enthusiastic volunteers have been working away at improving the soil in our Triplespan Greenhouse to get the ground prepared for growing food. We chose the greenhouse because of its location down on the floodplain and because the old structure meant we could grow in an area protected from pests. We started by …
Geoff’s Hempcrete House My owner-build hemp house is ticking along slowly but steadily. After a 5 month wait my double-glazed Murray River red gum windows and doors have been delivered and installed. I think they look brilliant and well worth the wait. My roof is on and we are now all ready for the hempcrete workshop starting on 13 April …
The aim of Narara Ecovillage is to build a caring, friendly community with social sustainability at its heart. As there will inevitably be differences and conflicts, we need a philosophy and process that sets out pathways to resolution: who to talk to, how to say it, what to do? Social sustainability is based on the safety and wellbeing of everyone …
‘Natural building’ is an umbrella term describing buildings constructed primarily from natural sources rather than man-made materials. It can include buildings made from mud, straw, clay, stones and wood, relying almost exclusively on raw or minimally-processed materials. Builders of ‘natural’ homes generally build use techniques which do not further pollute the environment, consume more fossil fuel, or unnecessarily extract more of the …
Narara Ecovillage is not a pet-free community but our Community Management Statement includes the aim to minimise the number. We are concerned about the risk to wildlife as we have many lizard, frog and rare bird species on the land we have custodianship for. We take the protection of this diverse ecology very seriously. We are also aware of the …
The Ecovillage aims to grow as much food as possible for the local community on site. We are committed to growing regeneratively, incorporating permaculture principles and hope to demonstrate a number of different techniques for growing food. The plan is to construct 5 comparison beds in the first span of our greenhouse, then build on our learnings and soil testing …
Permaculture is primarily a design system for a holistic approach to sustainable living and practice. Working with nature, it is the harmonious integration of design with ecology for creating sustainable human settlement by simulating or modelling the patterns and features of natural ecosystems. Permaculture was developed as a response to the dangers of industrial agricultural methods which are not sustainable …
The information supplied here of the Narara Agricultural Research Institute has mainly been obtained from the Conservation Management Plan, 2007 and the Conservation Management Plan Review, 2013, by Chris Betteridge, MUSEcape Pty Ltd for City Plan Services Gosford. After the supplies of valuable timber available in the area around the Narara Creek valley from mid-19th century were exhausted, the area …
At Narara Ecovillage, we have triple bottom line aspirations. We wish to raise the bar in the areas of Social, Environmental and Economic sustainability. As a part of our Social sustainability, we aim to be a Cohousing community. We focus on creating social interactions and connections that foster strong community fabric. In addition to layout of neighbourhoods, footpaths, common outdoor …
Narara Ecovillage aims to be self sufficient for its complete water needs. Narara Ecovillage Water (NEV) Water provides all potable water, sewer and recycled water services to the Narara Ecovillage site. NEV Water holds Network Operator and Retail licenses under the NSW Water Industry Competition Act (WICA). Narara Ecovillage was granted the first community-owned water licence in NSW by NSW …
As a community, we’ve agreed to protect and maintain the health of our members and ecosystems, and manage the land using organic and Permaculture principles. We aim to minimise, and ideally eliminate, the use of poisonous substances and nominate alternatives to the use of poisonous substances on the Community Parcel where possible. So today, we welcomed Ben Larson of Weedtechnics …
