From our time at booths and from guests at meetings, these are common questions we encounter. If you would like more information about something not covered below, please feel free to contact us at info@acesociety.org.
ACE Society is a registered British Columbia Society. We are registered under the name “AFFORDABLE COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT (ACE) SOCIETY”.
If appropriate for our plans, we will form a separate not-for-profit development corporation. This would then be the entity through which we purchase the land, arrange for construction loan financing and develop the land to create BeeLiving Ecovillage of Maple Ridge. The recommendation from our lawyer is to do this just before we decide to buy land. All members/purchasers would then contribute to this development corporation and receive shares in return.
ACES, the society, would continue to operate in the background documenting and evaluating the success of our project. This is to help achieve its vision of creating similar communities in other areas. The first project would become the template or guide for future projects.
There is a requirement that the potential members and subscribers attend at least two of our meetings. This allows us to get to know you and for you to learn more about us. If we feel that we have a good fit we will invite to you become a member.
Financial screening, while not occurring up front, will be expected later during the project. When the project’s financing is being reviewed, the collective financial health of the purchasers are reviewed by the financial institution in order to receive approval for the construction loan financing. Members’/purchasers’ individual financial health will be information strictly limited on a need to know basis.
Members: The maximum number of members will be equal to the number of units to be sold in the land we purchase. In our first Site Design Concept and Pro Forma, this was planned to be 12 units for owners/members. The order you sign up to become a member will become the order of when that family chooses what unit they want to purchase in the community.
Subscribers: There will be no cap to subscribers. Another 12 units are in our current concept project for rental. Our intention is to offer subscribers from our Subscriber list the upcoming rentals when they become available, so they will be become the wait list we draw from to offer units to potential future renters. Our long term goal, is to replicate and create other similar projects. The same subscribers wait list will also be used for rental opportunities in any future projects after our Maple Ridge Ecovillage is built.
You can also subscribe if you just want to support our mandate of creating housing with the same values we have: Affordability, Community and the Environment.
We want our Members and Subscribers to work together to help handle Membership, Marketing, Development/Design, and Financial/Legal. You will become the decision makers in how the community is designed and operates.
Our initial ask for members/purchasers is $1000 (seed money) and is separate from the share requirements of the not-for-profit development stage of the project. As is common with groups that manage their own builds, this value will rise as pre-development expenses such as preliminary land surveys and architectural plans are needed.
A required level of funding will be determined that will be come the minimum down-payment. In order to reduce the costs of larger initiatives, Angel investors can invest more than the required level of funding. This helps in allowing for a diversity of incomes to join the project. We are grateful to our Angel investors who have already invested amounts to support our activities in order to keep the initial seed amount at the low amount of 1000 for now. This is has allowed for other members to join the project that would not normally have been able to.
ACES will use funds generated by member fees to finance and evaluate the feasibility of such a community, and related matters. ACE Society’s day-to-day operation will be funded through subscriber fees ($50 / year). Startup, or seed costs, so far have included marketing costs such as web site hosting and brochures, legal consultations, necessary insurance, city fees, and member attendance at some paid conferences such as the Canadian Cohousing conference and the BC Small Housing Summit.
Lately Angel investors have helped with larger initiatives to help prove the feasibility of the land such as Geo-technical surveys.
In future years once the first project is completed, we believe our yearly subscriber fees after a proven successful project will help fund our society’s operations.
The cost of land and development is not currently known although preliminary estimates show that we can place people into our community for less than the cost of a typical development, in part because we will be the development corporation and therefore we will be saving the profit a typical developer normally makes. The trade off is that the exact cost will not be known until the project is completed, as there isn’t a profit-ceiling in our calculations. With this non-profit project, ambiguity can be expected.
The BeeLiving Ecovillage has intended land that will support more than 20 homes according to the city. Based on the decisions of the future neighbors, neighborhoods could be cohousing based, or pocket neighborhood (hamlet) based. Both models incorporate better community bonds through the design of the neighborhood, and community buildings.
Home design standards will also be agreed upon by the members. The final price will not be known with precision until move-in. When the construction loan is finalized, the legal structure we build under will transition the ownership of final units to members with traditional mortgages.
If the cohousing model of creating our community will be the chosen model to fund the development, then please see this infographic resource that explains how a group comes together to fund a cohousing community. Other potential sources of funding may also have an effect on the initial costs for members.
Please note, we still could change our housing form depending on future consultation. Our qualified experts are currently recommending smaller duplexes and triplexes with upstairs and downstairs units, so that each building will contain 4 to 6 units. This will suit the natural space more.
Our latest Site Design concept does have some space set aside to allow for Mobile ADUs spaces. These are the small white rectangles. If the city will allow this housing form we would like to incorporate it. We think we have a good chance of approval for it since the site allows for it to be minimally invasive to our neighbours and will be integrated into a larger permanent community, however, we still need to have these conversations with the city planning department.
We have evaluated some builders that meet our values, however we are still in pre-development and feasibility stages and not active construction. Some pre-development contractors have already been engaged.
We have not identified builders to construct these homes yet as we are too early in our process to tender a proposal for bidding. We have made some contacts with builders through various events. We would like to have the option of having people participate in the building of their own homes if it is feasible.
We see building together as a way to bond our community and a way to make things more affordable. However, critical building tasks, such as electrical, plumbing, etc, would be done by qualified trades’ persons.
We are likely to organize ourselves legally as some form of strata, however if our needs are better met other forms like co-ops we will consider it as a group. If strata, lots would be individually owned. All shared services, amenities and community facilities would be under strata rules. This is similar to a regular strata you would find in a townhouse or condo complex. Before moving in, the community members will create the rules and guidelines under which the community will function. Feedback from other cohousing groups recommends that community rules and guidelines be separate from the strata documentation except where it makes sense to legally be in the strata.
Besides a traditional strata fee, there could be nominal fees to help pay for group meals (as it is a common tradition to share some meals as a way to bond with your neighbors in cohousing) and other community functions. We may also consider fees to help pay for shared projects to help support the long-term sustainability, affordability and resilience of the community, where those projects were not incorporated into the initial build. Eg. Solar energy improvements or car sharing.
It should be noted that when there is community participation in maintenance of common buildings and amenities, it can be possible to keep the strata fees lower than would normally be expected.
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