Village Homes Realty
The first concrete slab poured for the home of Rachel and Andy Clough in Cluster 1C in March was an auspicious moment for everyone at the Ecovillage as it marked the start of what will be an incredibly busy building phase. Almost all of the new Ecovillage lot owners plan to start building their homes immediately so the site is rapidly being transformed.
House pricing and builder capacity
As most of you would be aware, the housing market in WA is pretty red hot, prices are on the increase and builders are stretched to capacity. In consultation with our guild of builders, we have recently updated the prices of our pre-designed homes on the House & Land Package page of our website. House build prices reflect the across-the-board increase in the cost of materials and service supply as the whole industry is feeling the pressure of this massive surge in demand.
While we know of several Ecovillage builders who are no longer taking new contracts for 2021 (where possible this has been noted on the designs), there are still builders with capacity and all of them will be taking orders for 2022. Please directly contact the builders listed for all information about the House & Land Packages.
We urge you to be patient and realistic with your building timeframes and pricing as we navigate our way through the next 12-18 months.
Homebuilder grant extension
The Federal government recently announced it would extend the construction commencement requirement from six months to 18 months for all HomeBuilder grant applications (i.e. for all contracts signed 4 June 2020 to 31 March 2021 inclusive). Read more about this here.
Ecovillage Building Bulletin
Since February 2021, we have initiated a formal email communication channel, the “Building Bulletin”, to keep Ecovillage builders, designers and architects up to date with any pertinent changes and building-related information.
To ensure this email contact list is accurate and current, we ask all future residents to provide the Ecovillage team with the names and email addresses of their builder / designer / architect if they are NOT on our preferred supplier list or part of our guild of builders. This includes residents who are owner builders as you will also need to be on the Building Bulletin communications list.
Ecovillage Community Centre
Coveney Browne Design has finished the concept design on the first of our public buildings, the Ecovillage Community Centre, and is nearly ready to lodge for Development Approval with the AMR Shire. We will then look at putting the design out to building tender. All things going smoothly, we anticipate being able to start building in September 2021.
The Community Centre will comprise a vaulted, multi-use space to fit large gatherings that can be divided into two smaller rooms for workshops and other more intimate events. At the west end, there will be a toilet block with commercial kitchen and servery window opening out to the long north-facing verandah that will in itself be another fantastic event space. This will spill out onto the lawn and connect up with the nature playground. What a wonderful versatile meeting place this will be for the community!
Document Library: the font of all Ecovillage knowledge
The Ecovillage team has gone to a huge amount of time and effort to compile comprehensive resources for our future residents and their builders, including handbooks, step-by-step guides to the design review process, plans and site maps, checklists, preferred suppliers, pricing, supplier deals (these are accessed via a secure link) and more.
Chances are, if you’re searching for an answer or a piece of information, you will be able to find it in the Document Library of the Ecovillage website. We have tried to include as much information as we possibly can, which we know can be overwhelming. However, we hope this will empower and inform you in order to make your Ecovillage journey as smooth as possible. So, please remind your builder and remember to look at the Document Library first, before you call us at the office.
