Firewise Recognition!

Manzanita Village Cohousing Earns National Recognition For Wildfire Preparedness

Because of its efforts to reduce the vulnerability of homes and landscapes to wildfire, Manzanita Village Cohousing has earned Firewise Communities/USA® recognition from the National Firewise Communities Program. The community worked with representatives of the Prescott Area Wildland/Urban Interface Council (PAWUIC), and the Prescott Fire Department to conduct a wildfire hazard assessment and develop a plan to address safety concerns. Residents then worked together to implement the plan.

Manzanita Village joins several other communities in the Prescott area to be recognized as Firewise Communities/USA, joining many other communities nationwide that have been recognized since the program’s inception in 2002.

To receive Firewise Communities/USA recognition, Manzanita Village met a rigorous set of requirements. The community completed the several activities, including conducting vegetation and fuel mitigation at various points around the perimeter of the community, working with local fire department to remove flammable vegetation from around their homes and other neighborhood structures, holding a community day during which Firewise information was distributed. In September, the community will host a small herd of goats that will continue the fire fuels mitigation process in their common-area ravine.

“Achieving Firewise recognition is not a quick or easy process. Manzanita Village Cohousing has done an outstanding job of creating a local Firewise Task Force and implementing Firewise principles,” said Michele Steinberg, support manager of the Firewise Communities program. “By preparing homes, structures, and landscapes before a wildfire occurs, Manzanita Village has dramatically increased the chance that homes and structures will be protected when a wildfire occurs.”

Working through the National Association of State Foresters (NASF), state forestry agencies support the Firewise Communities/USA recognition effort. The program is a nationwide initiative that recognizes communities for taking action to protect people and properties from the risk of fire in the wildland/urban interface. This program is of special interest to small communities and neighborhood associations that are willing to mitigate against wildfire by adopting and implementing programs tailored to their needs. The communities create the programs themselves with cooperative assistance from state forestry agencies and local fire staff.

Firewise Communities/USA® Recognition Program is part of the National Fire Protection Association, 1 Batterymarch Park, Quincy, MA 02169. For more information visit www.firewise.org.

"Arizona We Want" Semi-finalist!

 

Good News! Manzanita Village has been chosen as one of 33 semi-finalists in the Arizona We Want ((http://www.thearizonawewant.or​g/) program. We are the only co-housing group that has been chosen. In this state-wide competition, we are one of three semi-finalists in Yavapai County and, it appears, the smallest group chosen. Our proposal is to create a working demonstration project that captures rainwater runoff for gardening and landscaping usage, which reduces domestic water usage and erosion, and builds citizen engagement. The next step in the process is to complete a feasibility assessment including identifying and getting letters of support from potential collaborating partners and determining “the way [the] community does things that will never be the same again.”

Important to the whole Arizona We Want effort are actions that build community. According to a survey cited on their webpage only 12% of citizens in Arizona believe that people in their community care about one another. Only 25% believe it’s easy to meet people and make friends in their community, and only 37% believe they are treated with respect at all times. The low sense of connectedness to one another that Arizonans express is confirmed by the findings of the 2010 Arizona Civic Health Index. Arizona ranks 48th in the nation for exchanging favors with neighbors regularly and 45th for eating dinner with family/household members almost daily. We feel that cohousing provides an exciting and innovative model for building communities and modeling ways our neighbors can grow an Arizona where people care about their communities and each other.

Here are two more links about the grant:

“Into the Mind of Lattie Coor”:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2011/07/23/20110723lattie-coor-into-the-mind.html

Building Community in Arizona:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/2011/07/22/20110722community-editorial.html

Intergenerational Cohousing

The AARP has posted a great article on cohousing that emphasizes the advantages of multi-generational communities such as Manzanita Village. You can find it here.

Our New Chicken Coop

Our new residents in the Village have found a home that was built by many of their neighbors!  All fifteen of them live in a one-room house and all they have to eat is chicken feed!

Firewise Grant Awards Ceremony

On Monday April 4, John Mangimeli, member of the Manzanita Village Homeowner’s Association Board of Directors, and Cheryl and Melvin Hill, members of the Village FireWise Committee, attended the Yavapai County Commissioners meeting in order to receive the Title 3 Forest Project Grant for 2011. Funds from this grant will be used to do fire fuels mitigation and develop the communities FireWise program. This project will decrease the fire potential of the Village ravine area in order to move the community toward a more FireWise model. We hope to not only mitigate the fire fields but also enhance groundwater penetration and provide a healthier environment for both the plants and animals living in this area. This project could also become part of the larger effort on the part of Manzanita Village to become known as an exemplary neighborhood that is a good steward of our natural resources.

From Left to Right: Chip Davis, Board of Supervisors, John Mangimeli, Manzanita Village, Carol Springer, Chairman Board of Supervisors, Cheryl and Melvin Hill, Manzanita Village, Thomas Thurman, Vice-Chair Board of Supervisors.