ASAP! We have a membership process that allows you to test the waters as an "explorer" before committing to becoming a full member and reserving a home. The sooner you start that process, the sooner you can reserve a home and be part of the decision-making process and participate in design workshops. The sooner you join, the more capacity you’ll have to steer how the community is designed. In addition, housing choice is based on seniority in the project.

We got approval of our preliminary plat from Snohomish County in December 2024 and expect to begin construction in summer 2025.

Step one is to attend one of our online info sessions. If you like what you hear, you can choose to become an explorer and take the next step toward getting to know us and the project better.

If you want to arrange a tour of the land, we encourage you to contact us.

We closed on the farmland on September 24, 2020; that was the culmination of a 4-year process.

We then collaborated with Snohomish County to pass a new ordinance – the Rural Village Housing Demonstration program (RVHDP) – which passed in June of 2023. This was a huge milestone for the project and we hope will serve as a model for farmland preservation around the country.

In July 2023 we submitted our plat application to the county, which was approved in December 2024.

We hope to begin infrastructure construction in summer 2025 and are aiming to move in late in 2026!

Good communication skills, self awareness, and awareness of others. You do not have to (or want to) be a farmer or have any other agricultural skills to join.

Yes, we have single-floor two-bedroom and four-bedroom unit types.

We aim to balance sustainability with affordability in our design approach. Our architect, Bryan Bowen of Caddis Collaborative, is well-versed in net-zero, passive house, LEED, and Living Building Challenge design and has extensive experience creating low-carbon communities.

All homes will be constructed according to current code with regard to earthquake-proofing. Rooted NW is not on a flood plain, but due to a high water table, we do not plan to dig basements for the homes.

The homes will be in a single cluster on 5-10 acres, not sprinkled around the farm. This is key both for preserving prime farmland and for creating a close-knit, walkable cohousing village experience.

Sustainability is high on the list of priorities and values of the current members and is foundational to this project -- e.g., farming regeneratively (keeping carbon in the ground), building on a small footprint, sharing common resources, and strengthening local food systems. Specific sustainability practices of the community (e.g., how do we manage compost?) will depend upon the will and desires of the homeowners and residents at any point in time.

Rooted NW has existing water rights for irrigation, stock water, and domestic uses originating from the previous dairy operation. Our own public water system will use these rights and groundwater sources to supply the village and agricultural processing needs.

The housing will be on the county electrical grid. We are actively exploring additional resiliency strategies including, for example, onsite solar.

As of now, we estimate that homes will start in the $800,000s and prices for the various units will depend on size and other factors. For example, we have to estimate the future cost of construction. We are working on strategies to bring these prices down, especially for households who plan to farm.

The houses can be financed with standard approaches such as a home mortgage loan. In addition, we will try to come up with private financing (i.e., loans from people) for qualifying folks.

You will buy a home on a small lot, to which you will own the title. In addition, you will become a member of the HOA that owns and manages the village commons buildings and open spaces, infrastructure, and shared areas. You will also be a member of an HOA that holds the farmland outside the village area. Leading up to that you will be able to participate as a decision-maker on how that gets built by being a member of the community LLC.

All members will have access to the farm infrastructure and land for no additional fee, and can implement plans outside of the village footprint by working with both the member body and the Agriculture Circle to ensure their project meshes well with our goals of long-term stewardship and the permaculture master plan we’ll be maintaining.

No, the future homebuyers and residents of Rooted NW are backing this. We have been able to secure loans to cover start-up and land costs from a mix of social-impact oriented individuals and a local bank that will be giving us favorable terms because they like our mission. There are no third parties running the show: We, the members, will collectively fulfill the role of what is traditionally “the developer,” and no one in the team is taking a profit. We may engage a developer to secure the construction loan and manage the construction.

This is hard to predict as there are still many unknown factors. Ultimately it will be decided by the members, but our original intention was that HOA fees would cover the cost of shared utilities, upkeep of communal buildings, and taxes on the farmland.