This is a CTP of initiative: Ecovillage Sieben Linden (Germany)
This CTP describes the purchasing process of the site of Sieben Linden in 1997. After a few years of community building the initiative had lived and experimented in the project centre in Chüden from 1993 to 1997 (see previous CTP). An internal readiness and several external supportive events came together to take the step of realising the ecovillage project in physical space.
Based in the project centre Chüden and with the broader ‘friends of the ecovillage’ network a few engaged members of the initiative were searching for a piece of land nearby in the ‘Altmark’ region of Sachsen-Anhalt in Germany. It had to be large enough to build new ecological houses for about 300 residents, and to realise a self-sustaining, ecological and natural life in the countryside with gardening, growing food and forestry. The initiative was dependent on getting legal permission to build an ecovillage from both, a local municipality and the state government.
In 1996, the initiative has received the ‘TATorte’ Award from the ‘German Federal Environmental Foundation’ (DBU). The funds enabled them to hire experts, professionally work out an ecovillage concept and start with PR work on the base of being acknowledged by this distinguished foundation to convince political stakeholders from their unique ecological and holistic village idea. At the end of the same year, a suitable site was found 30km away from Chüden, part of the municipality of Poppau/ Bandau in the Altmark region, in the East German state of Sachsen-Anhalt.
An intense phase of events, different internal and external kinds of support and challenges started till the place was bought on the 27th of February in 1997. The 22 ha large land with an old farm house was bought with the cooperative, where aspiring residents and friends of the ecovillage had become members of. In June 1997 the first couple of members moved to Sieben Linden in trailer homes, starting to renovate the old farmhouse.
When purchased, the permission to build a village was not approved, yet. In general, it is challenging to get legal permission for building a new village because the German landscape planning laws are very strict and limited with building new larger settlements.
The official governmental administrations contradicted each other. “The administration was not prepared for the unusual request to found a new village. While the regional planning office was against a new village to prevent splitter development, the building permission office insisted on a new village to be guided by a legally binding land-use plan. The higher administrations till the national government have conciliated and clarified the conflict. Finally, the municipality as authorized administration has given permission for the land-use plan” (Interview Dieter Halbach)
The permission to build a village was legally bound to a non-private ownership, in this case the cooperative.
A key for to foster the regional publicity and reputation amongst political stakeholders had brought the TATorte Award from the ‘German Federal Environmental Foundation’ (DBU). The ‘friends of the ecovillage’ association has received the award for the local model of village development in Chüden in 1996. They have brought their vision for an ecovillage with some plans into the exhibition of the regional administration where all majors had been invited.
DBU funded the initiative for a second time in 1997 to establish a professional planning team when the place of Sieben Linden was found. The DBU-Foundation supported a professional advertising campaign which was used by the initiative to search and attract interest from local municipalities who would allow them to found an ecovillage.
In the requirements of arranging with the new community and moving to Chüden, the group had been busy with daily life. There are different perspective from which direction the initial ‘kick-off’ to restart the ecovillage action has come – from the inner group processes or the external acknowledgement, mainly the Award by DBU.
“The project centre looked rather chaotic and experimental than innovative. The motivation and trust into the purpose of our project had carried us – also thanks to community building and external supervision. The financial situation was not the problem. If we had really focussed on something, the financial support was there. We invested all our money and some of us 40 hours voluntary time per week.” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
Another perception was „the aim of an ecovillage had disappeared, at least for the majority. Only through the DBU TATorte Award, we could restart the initiative by getting together a professional planning team” (Interview Dieter Halbach).
In terms of external coproduction and support, the initiative started to contact and had welcome several political stakeholders like a member of the parliament of the Green Party to visit their project. Several of these political stakeholders later supported the permission process to build a new village on local and state level.
“Nevertheless, the decisive person was located in the regional planning office. He decided beyond the conflict of building and regional planning and gave permission for the ecovillage plan” (Interview Dieter Halbach)
The initiative was searching for a municipality which can offer a separate, connected, large enough piece of land to build an independent village and which is ready to create the legally binding land-use plan with them. They thought it would have been more complicated to create an ecovillage at the edge or in the centre of an existing ecovillage.
The municipality of Poppau was open to collaborate. “The most important welcoming aspect was the major of Poppau who was touched by our idea. He said it is too beautiful to be true. For him, it was the numbers of new people moving to here that we were planning: 300” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
It was perceived as a unique chance to enlarge the number of residents in this rural shrinking and underdeveloped area. The municipality assembly of Poppau agreed to the land-use plan. Sieben Linden had many positive conditions. A street and an electricity trace were already reaching to the land. Garden land, forest for self-sufficiency was partly included or potentially possible to buy later. Water has been a risk, but later, a dwell could be drilled.
“It was easy, but there were obstacles. The support from outside came, when it was needed.” (Interview Corinna Felkl). The project had professionally developed their village building land-use plan. The legal permission had gone the normal way through the institutions and was permitted.
9. November 1989: the Berlin Wall came down
Atomic-waste ‘Castor’ transport to Wendland area since 1995: large protest movement
The German Environmental Federal Foundation (DBU) awarded the Chüden project initiative in 1996
Purchase of the 22ha large Sieben Linden site on 27.02.1997; permission to build new houses in summer 1997
June 97: first few members move to Sieben Linden in trailer homes; renovation of farm house 1.part as kitchen, bathrooms etc., offices;
Summer 1997: more than 50 itinerant tradesman, mainly carpenters spend their summer time in 7Linden to renovate the farm house as a community centre
For realising a new ecovillage the initiative was prepared to deal with a number of legal and bureaucratic challenges. Still, the fear remained that the ecovillage initiative would not thrive and just a few houses would stand remotely from the next village with the need of infrastructural connection.
What they had to learn was behaving sensitive towards the reservations of the local villagers. On the one had the locals were excited that so many young people would move to their area and on the other hand they were sceptic about ideological ambitions. A special sensitivity was about ‘West Germans coming to East Germany’. The ecovillage initiative had to insure that would respect the local way of living and won’t try to evangelise anyone or to buy and take over too many abandoned houses.
“This was a very vulnerable point, because we did not know how the Poppau people would react to us.” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
“We had invested a lot of energy to contact them, talk with them and make them understand, we are the guests, they are the ‘land lords’”. (Interview Dieter Halbach).
The most critical external aspect in the Sieben Linden purchasing process was scepticism and accusation from the local church about the social values of the ecovillage initiative. The initiative had contacts to a community, which had been accused for child abuse which actually had turned out as not true. Even the office for question about world views of the protestant church did not withdraw from the accusation. In the end it was the major and the municipality assembly which stand behind the ecovillage initiative.
The confirmation of the municipality to welcome the initiative instead of the accusation by the protestant church was the actual critical turning point and the breakthrough for Sieben Linden.
“In the crucial moments we had an internal perception on what was necessary in the moment to put energy into. If we would not have put energy into clarifying this cult accusation, Sieben Linden would have been dead.” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
Internally, the ecovillage initiative has experimented living ecologically and communally with about 20 people for four years in the project planning centre Chüden from 1993-1997. Overall, the living together in Chüden was overwhelming and the people very busy with organising their daily lives and their internal processes. Planning the new ecovillage was hardly possible under these conditions, the intention got almost lost. There was some contestation which could be solved. “We also had external supervision since the beginnings in 1990. We could accept each other in their priorities.” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
The potential site of Sieben Linden was discovered in November 1996. The group of more than 15 people in Chüden had just settled and found the free school of Depekolk in 1995, not ready to leave the place again. About ten from Chüden have not join the Sieben Linden initiative, which was not perceived as a threatening for the initiative, because many others from the network (‘friends of the ecovillage’) were ready to move to a new ecovillage place.
“The majority had lived their daily lifes in Chüden. But we had between ten and 20 active members from abroad who supported us financially and with expertise and who wanted to move to the new potential village” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
The interviewee refers to the zeitgeist of the environmental movement at that time they were acting accordingly.
“For people who were political active and who felt responsible, the zeitgeist was about time pressure due to environmental problems and peak of resources. Then a singular historical time window opened! The Berlin Wall came down, and there was openness in the new states of East Germany.” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
“I am an urban planner and I always thought the main obstacle would be getting the permission to build a new village. But I had to learn that the crucial point was the interpersonal issues coming up where we haven’t been prepared to. We had to awkwardly realise that each one is grown up in a society which supports consuming behaviour instead of responsible community building.” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
The sect accusation was completely not anticipated and had hit the initiative in a vulnerable phase. “On the other hand, we had support, also in church circles. And from the environmental minister of Sachsen-Anhalt. We invited her to our project centre in Chüden and the decisive moments she spoke for us in the parliament and later.” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
The TATorte Award by DBU foundation was an unexpected positive support to bring the initiative forward.
The interviewee tells about a learning process of individual action and empowerment. When the group had settled in the project planning centre in Chüden, they were immediately absorbed by profane daily life issues. It was perceived as a delay in their plans to work towards the large ecovillage project. The interviewee was personally deeply involved in this phase. She remembers the process very lively when the group had come together to take a meta-perspective by doing constellation work. “There was a constellation asking who would move into the new ecovillage tomorrow and we have been only two people being ready for it. It was frightening but also liberating, because we knew, we were the two doing this job now” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
While starting to plan, search a site and making contacts with political stakeholders the interviewee experienced how she started working on her own.
“We did not give up, because of too less engaged people. At this point we started with two and it had an enormous pull and the others supported us with their qualities. I think you should never stop an initiative because of not enough people. If people want to go for something, there is no ‘too less’. When we started the others joined. We did not need to wait till all have time to work with us” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
“It was an advantage that we had a professional planning group, which could develop the plan instead of all people want to decide everything. We hired three external planners joining the team – one of them later became an ecovillage member. Through the DBU Award a competence hierarchy was given: A professional planning process with a developed system of participatory planning, including only those which had been really committed” (Interview Dieter Halbach).
Another key learning aspect was that the initiative had learnt about the importance of inner process work and community building in its early phase. “Our big challenge is not solar energy or straw bale housing, but our interpersonal activities and how we can work and optimise this” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
Making decisions like buying a certain piece of land has either caused group splitting or has caused several people to leave the initiative. The initiative has delicately learnt to deal with complex decisions in a differentiated and well communicated way.
“We are constantly growing, but we also have some fluctuation. If people leave, we clarify this and try to understand why they leave” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
The initiative had learnt early enough how important it is to network with the local population, accept their way of living and regional identity, and be transparent about the initiative.
“It was important to us to network in the region. We are sensible in the contact with the region, e.g. concerning to accept their pesticide agriculture. We had to know their claims, they have been here before. It was clear to us from the beginning. It was important to us to know our limits.” (Interview Corinna Felkl).
In terms of multiplying the learnings of Sieben Linden, the interviewee says, “it is not about biological eating and building or about car sharing and so on. This can be learnt in the cities, too. What people learn with our ecovillage initiative is about experiencing community, your own responsibility, the transparent influence that one has on the greater whole. And that we can make a difference by learning to cooperate, to develop communication and to learn to think for the ‘larger whole’. Also those who leave and our many seminar guests do take this learning to other places.” (Interview Corinna Felkl). The seminar and education centre was not planned as big as it has become over the years. Its impact is interregional and national.
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