“How do we create a community where people are free to love one another?”
~ Jim Rouse
By Catherine Austin Fitts
On May 27, I flew from Wellington at the southern tip of New Zealand’s North Island to Nelson on the north coast of the South Island, known as the “Top of the South.”
Nelson, a city of 46,000, is known for a thriving arts-and-crafts community and its Mediterranean-like climate. It is the cultural center for the Top of the South.
Waiting for me at the airport were Patsy, Carla and Lukas, friends who have moved to the Atamai Village, a sustainable community designed with the features of traditional villages and, for all intents and purposes, an eco-village (more on day-to-day life at their social media page).
We drove for approximately forty minutes along the coastline then closer to the mountains to arrive at Atamai Village for lunch at Patsy and Carla’s house.
Properties in Atamai are purchased individually. Patsy and Carla had moved from Waiheke Island north of Auckland two years ago. Their new eco-home, a well-insulated passive solar design, is located high on a hill. It is full of large, north-facing double-paned glass windows which allow it to be warmed by the sun. It uses a peat-filter grey-water system which then irrigates berry bushes and a compost toilet and is surrounded by terraced vegetable gardens.
Their views cover the whole valley which looks a bit like a subtropical Switzerland. Down the hill and on the north side of the bowl which the village is nestled in, bulldozers are busily at work on the next (9) properties for sale (for more on properties, click here) as well as preparing the site for a new village center.
Slowly and steadily, members of the Atamai community arrive for a fresh, organic potluck lunch from members gardens followed by a roundtable discussion.
This is truly a cosmopolitan village with members from New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Germany. There are also French wwoofers. And there are even members of the enspiral.com community of entrepreneurs I have been hearing so much about in Wellington.
Naturally, I have lots of questions about life in the community.
It turns out that while it is forty minutes to Nelson, it is only ten minutes to the grocery store and movie theatre in Motueka, the nearby by town. I live in a farming community in Tennessee and it is an hour to a grocery store and movie theatre. So, the quality of the location combined with easy access to services leaves me envious.
It also turns out that there is an excellent Waldorf school nearby – an important resource for families with children.
For those who love outdoor life, the South Island of New Zealand is tremendous – there is climbing, skiing, sailing, hiking, mountain biking. It does not get much better than this. Kiwis are very athletic: they take every opportunity to get out into the wilds of one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
Some of the people who have purchased plots and built homes are entrepreneurs who can work remotely, so they can live anywhere. Needless to say, the Internet quality is good: the community has its own company which provides this service to villagers and local subscribers .
Others are retirees – they have the freedom to choose the place where they want to live. And some have small businesses like Patsy and Carla who offer bookkeeping and business admin services for the community and local area. They also employ other villagers.
All the members of the village joining us for lunch affirm the importance of living in a smaller scale, more human community. Some are concerned about the health of the global economy and many are concerned about environmental pollution.
We have a long discussion about the next nine people or families who will buy the round of titles (individual sections) which are being prepared for sale and building of individual homes. When building an Eco-Village, it is very important that the community attract people who will be happy and who will contribute to village life.
I hear a similar story at Atamai that I have heard in Wellington and Auckland. People from all over the world continue to immigrate to New Zealand. The flow of people looking to immigrate or to buy a second “getaway” home is growing. My New Zealand friends seem to be getting over their discomfort with this. The trend is too strong and long-lived.
The members of Atamai Village don’t seem to think that the residency requirements in New Zealand are much of a barrier to joining their community. Many of them have made the conversion to citizens or to residents. I insisted it does not appear so easy when you are living a 20-hour plane ride away. They are doing a series of things to make the transition easier such as creating dedicated relationships with the best local home-builders and providing each new family with a sponsor (an established village family). But helping people understand the legal issues of moving to New Zealand is a point they’ll need to address.
After learning about the Village, our conversation broadened to a more general discussion about the future – about the residents’ hopes and dreams for Atamai and the nuts and bolts of how to continue to translate these into a thriving community. One member is working on a potential ownership structure and design for a co-housing build with rental units included in it – for consideration by the community after the individual plots have been successfully developed.
One thing at a time!
Then we turn to events in the world and to why more people are looking to live in places like Atamai. A recent study on drug addiction shows that human connection not only creates an immunity to addiction but can quickly heal people of addictions – even those considered hopeless. Atamai is not a place where you come to be isolated. It’s more like a traditional neighborhood or village where people actually know and support one another.
Finally, as the sun continues down in the sky, our long afternoon comes to a close. I head back to the airport for the short flight over the water to Wellington. As I think over the day, the words that keep coming to mind are “connection” and “resilience.” The members of Atamai want to live with a strong, positive connection to each other and to the people and living things around them. In a world which often seems to have gone mad, they seek resilience. They want intimacy and redundancy in their provision of food, energy and shelter. They value a life which is healthy and which makes sense.
Watching the breakdown of civilization around us, they have taken it upon themselves to rebuild it in one village on this beautiful land way “down under.”
If you are interested, visitors are welcome. They even have a B&B!
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