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Mr. PH Kurian IAS laid the foundation stone & launched a unique housing initiative in Kerala called the Sustainable Village from Green Collective Projects Pvt Ltd, spear- headed by a few Tech company leaders where every member is a shareholder. It provides more common areas than government stipulations, has shared facilities and services such as common vegetable farm, clean water harvested lake for drinking water and agriculture, ample areas for entertainment and leisure, walkways, wide roads and so on and so forth. A totally different model for a villa project that is markedly different from the common villa projects we come across in Kerala!

“This is not a brick-and-mortar kind of housing scene we want to offer – but homes like those of yesteryear villages where there was genuine harmony with nature & everyone did agriculture and shared food produce in the neighborhood. There will be enough fruits and vegetables for everyone at Sustainable Village and this is how this project is conceived!” Says Binu Jacob who is heading Experion Technologies, who kick-started this initiative a few years back and believed that this could work well in Kerala.

Some of the highlights are - 2.9 acres for common vegetable cultivation, average plot size of 12 cents to build smaller footprint houses than urban homes where the backyard will have fruit trees for personal consumption and bartering within the community. The houses are not the most important attraction, while build quality is top-notch; - but clean food, clean air, & clean energy at the place of dwelling and the village culture defined by likeminded individuals sharing a common theme to build their own eco- village near Technopark.

The community when completed would have 70-75 villas and ample common facilities such as gazebos, amphitheater, and a clubhouse etc. to help residents enjoy better health, wellness and emotional quotient. BuildNext, an architect cum building Company, was entrusted with the design to provide a terrain/contour friendly placement of roads and houses to avoid breaking & levelling the hill, ensuring topsoil availability for agriculture. With no sales and marketing team or a website even – 40 members were on board when only the hillock was visible, and they could visualize how it will be on project completion! The members include IT CEOs, country head of global corporations, industry leaders, senior medical and legal professionals, and more.

A model for everyone to emulate

The issue in Kerala is lack of large landmass available at affordable costs near cities and towns. That is when Green Collective thought of creating a village at the periphery of the city with enough members to manage costs and create a good village like environment. This initiative was started 5 years back with a 20-acre plan and Covid set it back by 2 years, aggregating land was not easy at this scale. But members contributed and loaned funds to progressively buy land to realize this concept and all were part of the private limited company built on the principles of a co-operative or social business model with profit not being the motive.

Green Collective projects have its ambitions in ensuring food security and secure housing. Members have a singular focus of creating an eco-village environment that not only provides a place of comfortable shelter, but also everything that a farming community of olden days could provide.

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