Atamai Village Update

Dear Friends,
I'm eager to give you an update on us and on the village. We're well and quite busy - Jack with tree-planting on the land around and sloping down from our house. In the previous two autumns there have been large-scale plantings of mainly natives for wind-break and slope protection. In the last month and continuing there has been planting of fruit and nut trees on the sunny terraces - cherry, plum, pear, nashi (a Japanese pear), peach, almond, hazelnut. Apples yet to come when we can get the varieties we want.
I'm largely occupied with the people side of the village - helping where it's needed, organising the communal meals and the village council meetings. A big day coming up is next Saturday when the regional biodynamic growers' group will meet here for a compost -making day and also to make biodynamic preparations. (Adrienne, who cares for the orchards, is strongly oriented to biodynamic growing.)

As you can see, the house is progressing. It takes an inordinate amount of our time too. Millions of mini-decisions.

Jurgen has just written a whole village update, which I'll now include. It gives you a good overview of where we are in village development.
This image is part of the garden Jurgen is developing adjacent to his house site. The house doesn't yet exist, but will be Japanese in character.

Hi everyone
Looking for the last update sent to everyone I realise that 10 months have gone by without a word from us to the friends of Atamai far and wide. Not surprisingly it is not due to all being quiet in the village but rather an unintended by-product of intense activity. Including everything that has happened and is going on would see you read for hours, so here is just a selection of some of the more important developments:
The land
Over the last months a good number of property changes, boundary adjustments, title issues and acquisitions have happened. A block of adjacent land of about 10 ha has been added to the village as well as another one of the existing houses on the ridge top. The house, a 400 sm high quality residence including a large independent flat, is being retrofitted with solar panels, an additional room and some landscaping changes and will be available for sale as part of the village at the end of the summer.
Food security, which was mentioned already in our mailout last summer as an upcoming crisis point is now emerging rapidly as an issue of serious concern around the world. Food prices are expected to rise by up to 30% in short order and food shortages in many countries are expected to continue to make headlines again. Last week a UN conference on the issue was called.
In the tradition of transition towns Atamai continues to work on practical preparations for local food security. The Mediterranean garden is in very good shape this spring, a private and established leasehold garden plot has been added to the village production pallet for a number of years and row crops are being put in for the first time for bulk staple foods.
The community orchard has been extended significantly over the winter planting season and is being lovingly cared for by Adrienne, who is now on the crew full time.
The nursery had an additional well water source added which we don’t expect to ever run dry.
Over summer we will put up the new green house to have more scope for shoulder season production (see nursery remarks below).
More maintenance and food production equipment has been purchased for the village including a small tractor with mower and front loader.
Village Development Process
We were fortunate to have two very talented landscape designers from London, Paul and Anise work for us over winter developing a Permaculture landscape design methodology which can now be used for the planning of all the new private sections. It makes the creation of effective permaculture systems a much easier, structured and satisfying process. It also saves a lot of effort and provides a means of integrating landscapes on private titles into the bigger Atamai permaculture picture.
The Sustainable Villages development team achieved a significant milestone and filed the application for the second residential stage of Atamai Village last month. This second stage comprises the balance of the larger sections scattered around the denser village core. The denser village core is the third stage which completes the village. The third stage is now planned for consent filing mid next year.
Stage two consists of 24 new residential sections, 7 of which are ‘sold’ or spoken for at this stage. The plan for the sections has been posted on the web site.
Building projects & Sections
Jack and Joanna’s house will have the ‘roof shout’ party for the first Atamai Eco House on the 29th of October. The roof is on, structural timber walls are up, windows are going in and it is making progress in leaps and bounds due to the diligent work of Greg Law and his ‘ORCA Development’ crew. Greg is looking forward to build as many of the homes and buildings at Atamai as possible.
One of the next buildings to be put up will be a stone clad implement shed on the commons.
Village community
Quite a few changes have happened and there is now a number of households living on the Atamai land. Craig and Tracey and their little son William have moved onto the site (renting), as have Wulf and his son Christian into their house and Greg and Isabel and their 4 children Noah, Sophia, Fin & Nathan (renting as well). Craig and Tracey will be starting to build as soon as possible on Lot 4. Greg and Isabel are waiting for their section (Lot 9, stage II) to become available. So all in all there are currently 6 households already on site with Adrienne and Lynda keen to join as soon as possible. Plans for Adrienne’s house on Lot 5, stage I, are also close to complete.
Sadly Geoff and Leonora have decided to stay in Nelson at this stage and have put Lot 0, which they purchased last year back into the pool of available properties. Their lot 0, stage I is one of the two only elevated properties currently available with brilliant views.
Rob and Lisa have decided to be part of Atamai and intend to purchase Lot 8 Stage I, as has Lynda.
With more people on site the social aspects of the community are coming along nicely and a number of events, pot lucks and working bees are planned for those interested to join in.
One of the more hazardous aspects of the emerging village live is that one has to watch now for increasing numbers of little knights with wooden swords on wooden cycles ambushing residents and practicing their chivalry skills on unaware passersby.
A good number of visitors have announced themselves for summer this year to check out the site or stay for a little while to see if they like the village project. We really look forward to welcome you all.
Business Opportunities
The brick/block making operation has now been fully set up and three varieties of bricks are in production. The first batches of about 8000 bricks have been made and most of them will be used in Jack & Joanna’s house and for landscaping. Atamai recently acquired a large production green house and a nursery utility building at an auction and they have been moved onto the village grounds and should be completely installed over summer. Lynda and Joni Bridge will be operating the nursery initially until either an enthusiastic owner operator comes on board or a cooperative forms itself.
A business plan for a third enterprise, the production and sale of the Terra Preta soil conditioner has been completed and is also awaiting an owner operator.
So if you are interested in taking up either of these three ready to go businesses as a livelihood, let us know.
Rob Malloch has converted the Hangar at TeMara into a well equipped engineering workshop as a base for his village business and has spent a number of months now bringing all of the machinery and vehicle fleet up to scratch. His next project will be to complete development of the Lister engine powered generators.
Organisational Changes
After more than two years of planning, preparation and legal work the villages governing body which will also hold all the commons asset has now been formed and is duly incorporated as a society. It is officially called ‘Atamai Village Council Inc’. The trust, which is the ‘developer’ of Atamai, has been renamed ‘Atamai Trust’ so we could keep the more appropriate ‘Council’ name for the actual village body.
The next step in the formation process is to split the trust into the charitable part which will undertake the educational work in the future and a private trust which will complete the village implementation and then dissolve.
Earthworks
The earthworks for Jack & Joanna’s section were completed last summer. The sections 9 & 10 started in late autumn but have been stop and go all winter and spring due to persistently unfavourable rainfall patterns and amounts. Some progress has been made in spite of it and the drainage systems and silt retention measures have coped well with the abundant rain. The ground is now drying out now a we look forward to have the sections completed before the end of the year.
Web Site
As part of a major advertising initiative to sell the remaining sections of stage I and II the web site will get another major overhaul in the next weeks. Information on the sections, layout, pricing, updates on developments, progress with the permaculture land use planning and implementation will all be posted as a resource.
Expect another email update when it’s ready!
kind regards
Jurgen Heissner, Executive Board Member

Back to my comments now: this is a complex and difficult project, and I feel good about how far we have come. The people side of the village is coming together. The nicest aspect of this is the delightful kids involved. Conflicts, of course, have already arisen,as expected. Is someone experienced enough to keep a cow on their land? Does adding biochar conflict with organic gardening principles? I'm confident that we are dealing with these in a constructive way, although we will have to attend closely to the process of living in this way, partly communally, as distinct from the way we have all been socialised.

You can learn more details about Atamai on our website www.atamai.co.nz

Warmest wishes to all,
Joanna