Who are we?

We are regular people who are trying to find a better way to live our lives. Do we all want to eat organic all the time, ride our bikes everywhere, and have bamboo everything? Sure! But just like you, we live in the real world; we enjoy Oscar Myer wieners around the campfire, shop at Superstore to save a few bucks, and drive our kids to soccer lessons. The important thing is that we are creating a life together which will inspire us and enable us to improve the way we lead our lives.

By living in community, we can make it easier to live the way we want – it becomes easy to buy organic local vegetables when the farmers drop them off at our doorstep each week, easy to send the kids outside to play in nature when there are 15 other kids playing on “mud mountain”, and it is easy to drive less when our friends live right next door. Are we perfect? Of course not, but that’s just the way we like it.

All these wonderful things, and more.
Read on.

The Yarrow Ecovillage is an exceptional combination of cohousing, sustainable living, farmland preservation, a live/work community and a mixed-use town center. The combination of three elements – living, working and farming – along with many other activities and amenities such as learning, socializing, sharing, teaching, playing, visiting, will come together to provide a model for environmentally, economically and socially sustainable lifestyles. The residential, cohousing community will be the first building block.

The site on Yarrow Central Road will include a 28-unit cohousing project, a village center, a seniors cohousing a learning center, and the certified organic farm we are all very proud of.

Our welcome sign on the front of the Heritage Barn we'll be restoring as the heart of the Commercial/ Mixed Use developmentcenter, and a 20-acre farm.

Yarrow used to be its own town before being incorporated into Chilliwack and since then the lure of big mall shopping in the city has resulted in Yarrow losing its town center. On the front street side of the ecovillage, 30,000 sq ft of commercial space will offer services to the greater neighborhood and places for work and creative opportunities. The Yarrow Ecovillage and its new commercial area, including 17 apartments, the refitted dairy barn, and a completely walkable environment, promises to be as functional as a small town center – and more. Its developers, the Yarrow Ecovillage Society (YES) Cooperative, bring clarity of vision to the process. Their ability to work together effectively yields the best strategy for accomplishing the type of new town center that redevelopment agencies dream of. Yarrow Ecovillage will be a high-functioning hub where people can purchase locally-grown organic produce (grown on site); a place where one can park once and shop at five or six locations, go to the bakery, the bank and an artisan’s shop; meet a friend for coffee, work on site, get to know your neighbors, or take a class or two. It will be a place where adults, elders and even teenagers like to hang out and where people can grow and sustain a culture. The goal is to not only enhance commercial viability and create a quality living environment, but to create a culturally-viable and culturally-vibrant place.


Yarrow Ecovillage Phase One of Multi Family Cohousing

The cohousing portion of the site plays a critical role in the ecovillage and in creating this culture. It is a place where people learn cooperation and development skills – as well as how to brainstorm, discuss, and decide; it will be a place where well-intentioned citizens learn to make consequential decisions together to accomplish their environmental and their social aspirations.

South of the cohousing is a 20-acre organic farm. Some of the people who live in the cohousing will co-own and operate the farm as well, and like the commercial area, the farm will be a separate partnership, managed by people with farm expertise (the business of farming and farm expertise), but still an important part of the larger whole–the Yarrow Ecovillage.

The cohousing, first in the development process, is really the kingpin of the larger whole. It will be the cornerstone or the incubator for fair, thoughtful and efficient processes and investment models. It will not only catalyze the larger whole, it will help to synthesize the three separate endeavors to accomplish the overall goals of the ecovillage.