Community, affordable housing, creeks and dams in a rural village — how could this be possible?
About 50 people were at an information session in Kyogle to hear more about the Afterlee Ecovillage yesterday, Saturday, February 1.
The Afterlee Ecovillage is on 700 acres (283 hectares) about 20 minutes drive from Kyogle.
There are plans for 60 house lots. Half of the lots have been bought, with the next 30 available to purchase.
The choice of lots is based on a first come-first served basis.
Town planner for the project Shane Sylvanspring said, “All sites are good even if you’re the 60th person.”
The smaller lots close to the village are about a quarter of an acre and cost $145,000. The smallest lot is 1200sqm.
The larger lots are more than one acre and cost about $170,000.
There is 200 acres of cleared land and 500 acres of forest that is under a logging agreement.
Read more about the ecovillage here.
When you buy a plot in the ecovillage multiple occupancy site, also called an MO, you become a shareholder and member of the co-operative that owns the land.
What is built on the land are assets owned by the member who paid for that plot. Anything built on shared land such as a community hall is owned by the cooperative.
As a member you have a say on how the land is used with a board of seven people making many of the day to day decisions.
One woman asked if she could graze horses on the shared land — yes that’s possible, organisers said, as long as members and the board agree.
The vision of the ecovillage is this: Could Afterlee become a place to nurture people and the land at the same time?
This is a new way of creating a village and buying a home — members have an instant community with a shared vision of sustainable ecological practices.
One of the messages that came across at yesterday’s talk was — you are not alone.
The cooperative is there to help with learning, sustainable house design and caring for the land.
The Healthy Living Community Cooperative was set up many years ago and founding members spent years searching for land that is suitable for an MO-style ecovillage.
They found that at Afterlee.
Shane said the abundance of water in creeks and the four dams was definitely part of why they chose Afterlee.
Shane has lived in several communities around the world including at Findhorn Community in Scotland.
The site has been approved by Kyogle Council and the money from the next sell-off of plots will be used for infrastructure such as roads in the ecovillage. The first lot of members’ money was used to buy the land.
What makes Afterlee different to other MOs? Shane posed this question to the audience at Kyogle.
“Its size,” Shane said.
“There are only six other ecovillage communities of this size in Australia.
“And most MOs don’t have a village.”
Member Bunya Halasz said part of what they want to do is to regenerate degraded land.
“We made a conscious decision to put some residential land on slopes to save the best land for food production and for opportunities for livestock,” he said.
There is the original farmhouse on the land and the first housing cluster sits around that original building.
The purchase by the co-operative includes the school and RFS shed. The RFS shed will be leased to the RFS and the NSW Education Department has no plans to reopen the school.
Shane said a working group of parents is looking at how to reopen the school although this may take a while to happen. He said the school would be open to everyone, not just members.
Another plan is for an micro-grid where 29 houses will be provided with energy through solar and batteries.
“It s a big cost for the co-op to do this, Shane said.
This is basically going off-grid but within a group.
Shane said this could be a possible first for Australia.
Other plans include a nursery, cafe, wastewater facilities and a natural swimming pool.
There will be an ongoing service cost for this, Shane said.
The questions of rates was raised by a man in the audience. He was particularly peeved that every home and business in Kyogle Shire had to pay individual rates.
Because the Afterlee Ecovillage is one entity its 60 households will pay 1/60th of the rates bill each year.
The man thought this was unfair and wanted to know what the co-operative was going to do about this inequity given people living there would be using roads into Kyogle paid for by ratepayers.
“It is not our intention to rip off Kyogle Council,” Shane said.
It is the legislation around MOs that dictates how rates are paid.
“Why don’t you subdivide and pay rates like everyone else,” the man in the audience said.
The rates questions rolled back and forth — an MO pays rates as one landowner — and this was not a subdivision.
The structure of a cooperative is different to having individual landholders getting together for a common purpose.
This is noticeable when it comes to selling the property or passing it on to family when the owner dies for instance.
“The board has to approve the buyer,” Shane said.
The group is working on a process of passing a plot onto the next of kin, he said.
Like many of the issues raised, the cooperative is still working out many of the processes which will guide the future living at the ecovillage.
As people become members they are invited into these processes if they wish.
There were already six working groups and current members had done extensive training with Bunya on permaculture and land practices.
Shane said they had been working closely with several Afterlee locals and were learning about the land and the history of the area.
For the village of Afterlee, the influx of 60 households and potentially 120 adults and however many children, will change the shape of this pretty village tucked into the soft green hills — could it revive a rural village where the population is aging, its school closed — could it be a saviour for Afterlee? Or could it present unmanageable problems?
An RFS member was at the talk and he said they would need to upgrade their equipment to deal with the increased fire potential with 60 more households. He also said the Afterlee RFS needed more members.
Member Kelly Reiffer said they could help write grants for more equipment. Shane said it was likely cooperative members could join the RFS unit.
The issue of increased traffic on local roads was raised a few times.
Shane said the co-operative would manage the internal roads in the ecovillage and they planned to buy equipment to do this.
“We will invest in larger machinery when we need it,” he said.
“We need to maintain fire breaks.”
Every second Saturday of the month, people are invited to a site visit which coincides with a members’ working bee. It is an opportunity to meet with the people involved and learn more about the ecovillage.
More information is at the Afterlee Ecovillage website.
Correction: IndyNR.com originally stated that co-op members Kelly Reiffer, Shane Sylvanspring, Cyprien Clerc and Bunya Halasz were board members but they are not – they are co-op members except for Shane (he is a co-founder of the Afterlee Ecovillage).
This article appeared on indyNR.com on 2 February 2025.