RENDERINGS BY DOUG COOPER

TThe Rachel Carson EcoVillage is making progress with the construction of a new home for its sustainable living community.

After Chatham University announced last fall that it would no longer accommodate the ecovillage At its Eden Hall campus in Richland, the multigenerational community is preparing to break ground on a property in McCandless owned by the Sisters of Divine Providence.

The community will now be called “Rachel Carson EcoVillage at Providence Heights” and will be located next to La Roche University and Providence Heights Alpha School on an 8-acre plot of land on Cumberland Road donated to them by the sisters.

“The sisters are an extraordinary partner for us in this project,” says Stefani Danes, project manager of the ecovillage and associate professor in the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. “We are working closely together to fulfill the mission of ecological justice and to create a model for living that is good for people and also good for the environment.”

Named after famous environmental activist Rachel Carson, EcoVillage will consist of 35 condo-style units ranging from studios to two-bedrooms, with the majority of units offering the option of customization.

“(The units) will provide a good social spectrum with plenty of variety, but also enough financial stability to ensure the community is well positioned for sustainability in the long term,” Danes says.

Residents share the communal house, which includes a kitchen, laundry room, dining/gathering area, study, and two guest bedrooms. The facility is also powered entirely by renewable energy sources to save energy and minimize carbon emissions.

The idea for an ecovillage was born more than 20 years ago, when Danes and other environmentally conscious residents founded a residential community in Pittsburgh. Members of the group have occasionally split off and found other initiatives that meet the group’s common goal of sustainable coexistence.

“I think we started four times, looking at different locations. At some point, each location had a problem and we couldn’t continue,” says Danes.

The Rachel Carson EcoVillage originally began when representatives from Chatham University sent out a call for proposals for an ecovillage in their Masterplan for the Eden Hall CampusHome of the university’s School of Sustainability.

“The board chose our community because of our experience. I think they realized it would take more than just a real estate deal to make this happen,” Danes says.

In January 2020, the community, including Danes, began gathering people who might be interested in joining the ecovillage. Despite the disruption caused by Covid, the community established before the pandemic remained intact and dedicated to bringing the ecovillage to life.

“The unique thing about community living is that it is a conscious community. That means that the people who are interested in living in such a community are also the ones who make it possible,” says Danes.

In 2023, their plans came to a halt when Chatham University announced, following changes at the university, that it would no longer accommodate the ecovillage on land that was originally dedicated to the community.

“They suggested that maybe we could look for another place on campus, but (the suggested alternative was) a developed lot,” Danes says. Without connections to municipal utilities such as sewer lines, which the original lot offered, the property was “not buildable for us,” according to Danes.

Rather than abandon their plans, the founders of the community decided to consider other options before agreeing to an arrangement with the Sisters of Divine Providence.

“(Our) vision is to live in a place that enables or supports us to be connected to each other and to nature,” Danes says. “(Our) mission and their mission just fit so well together that this was the obvious choice.”

The ecovillage’s new home meets all the requirements for a residential community, Danes says, including being close enough to La Roche University so that community members can benefit from the sisters’ spiritual retreat center, the university’s facilities and even La Roche’s continuing education program, which will be available to ecovillage residents.

According to Danes, construction of the facility is expected to begin in early fall.

“We are trying our best to make up for lost time and start construction as soon as possible,” she says.

To learn more about the Rachel Carson EcoVillage, click here.