For the 3rd time in 30 years, a residential developer aims to turn the Laurelwood school's farmland into a subdivision. We're assisting the locals and their attorney with research and insight in opposition. We share the vision of that land's use remaining primarily agricultural.

The Laurelwood property includes a small vineyard. It was productive a decade ago but has been left to grow wild since. We expect to restore and expand it.

Located in the Chehalem Mountains Laurelwood District AVA, we could join some existing winery tours open to the public.

The Laurelwood property includes an orchard with about 300 productive fruit trees. Most are apples, with fewer pears and plums as well. The region should also be good for figs, and we'll try some other less common fruit trees.

What orchard fruit would you help us cultivate?

Mia, one of our founding members, plans to join the Garden / Permaculture pod and also contribute to the Homeschooling pod. Mia joins us from New England with a background in early childhood education as well as experience with cannabis cultivation and businesses.

The Science / Home Ec building has sadly not been maintained as well as the others. We're hopeful it can be restored. Labs for science projects and startups, auditorium as a backup theater, home ec micro kitchens for food projects and education... So many possibilities!

The first property we pursued for the CoDwell intentional community project was Southern Vermont College. The dorms, classrooms, manor, fields, forest, and other amenities were a great fit. We continue to search for other properties to consider if Laurelwood doesn't work out.

What sort of events and activities would you do in our gym? Two basketball courts, 100x100ft with 30ft ceilings, 30x100 shuffleboard, 30x60 stage, locker rooms.
Sports, aerial arts, climbing, roller skating, drone racing, ... what else?
#intentionalcommunity

The Admin building was used and maintained by the previous owners. It contains six large classrooms, a dozen small to medium offices, and a 300 seat theater. We would use these spaces for events, education, coworking, performance, startup incubation, and private member offices.

High level decision making in our community will be driven by explicit priorities that will be written into our founding documents.
This draft isn't set in stone and might change as more varied viewpoints become part of the project.
Text of priorities in thread to follow.

Our target property includes this Industrial Arts building with a wood shop, auto shop with lifts and five bays, welding shop, car paint room, and multiple classrooms we intend to use for new shops such as for 3d printing and electronics fabrication.
What would you build here?

CoDwell's governance structure may see some tweaks depending on eventual sources of funding/financing, and will definitely change over time as the community grows and equity moves into the hands of the residents. That said, here's the plan for launch in the most likely case.

The "Girls Dorm" (minus the historic religious gender segregation) will be the center of our intentional community coliving residential spaces from day one. 60 dorm rooms, 2 apartments, 1 house, 1 commercial and 3 residential kitchens. Most recently used as a retreat center.

One of the novel features of our target property west of Portland is the on-site wastewater treatment. A fountain, cage of rocks, series of small algae pools, and pair of large ponds slowly return human waste to nature. All legal and safely maintained and monitored.