🏔️ A Regenerative Revolution Rises in the Kootenays

Something is stirring in the mountains.

Across the Kootenay region of British Columbia—and now echoing across Canada—a growing movement is rejecting the high-cost, low-resilience housing status quo. Builders, visionaries, landowners, and residents are coalescing around a new regenerative vision: modular microhome villages with integrated life-support systems for food, water, energy, and mobility.

This is no longer just a dream. It’s a revolution—and it’s already underway.

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💥 From $600K to $100K: A Financial Earthquake for Families

The average home in the Kootenays now costs over $600,000, locking families into decades of debt and draining community resources. But microhomes and modular domes, priced closer to $100,000, could liberate families from financial precarity.

Imagine:

• $500,000 saved per household

• $50M in redirected wealth across just 100 families—toward food systems, renewable energy, wellness centers, and climate-resilient infrastructure.

This isn’t theory. It’s happening. And it just had its biggest showcase yet.

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🎉 Event Recap: Kootenay Microhome Pop-Up Community, May 24, 2025

Held at the Nelson Farmers Market and hosted by MC Josh Manerikar and visionary Jean-Marc La Flamme, the event brought hundreds of market-goers into direct contact with Canada’s most innovative homebuilders and regenerative community pioneers.

Highlights:

• Live 3D-printed home demonstration by Twente Additive Manufacturing.

• Booths from Canadian Tiny Homes, Skye Domes, Cooper Creek Village, Queens Bay Resort, and Big Calm.

• Open mic Q&A and real-time idea harvesting for the community-driven Microhomes for a Regenerative Kootenays Manifesto.

• Performances and meaningful conversations that sparked new partnerships, land offers, and collective visioning.

“This wasn’t just an event—it was the start of a movement.” — Jean-Marc La Flamme

See all the photos here!

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📜 State of the Movement: Insights from the Manifesto

The Microhomes for a Regenerative Kootenays Manifesto synthesizes the collective intelligence of builders, residents, and organizers across the region.

🔥 The Crisis:

• Skyrocketing home prices

• Outdated zoning laws

• Disconnected efforts and siloed solutions

• A breakdown in civic engagement and communication

🌱 The Solution:

Regionally led, community-powered civic infrastructure for housing transformation, anchored in regenerative design and cooperative financing.

🔑 Key Manifesto Strategies:

1. Civic Engagement Hubs
   Forums, hackathons, design sessions, and AI powered solutions.

2. Showcasing Local Builders
   Featuring Twente AM, Canadian Tiny Homes, Skye Domes, and more through immersive pop-ups and living labs.

3. Land Matching Programs
   Connecting landowners with community builders using cooperative and lease-to-own models.

4. Creative Financing Toolbox

   • Credit union micro-mortgages

   • Mixer mortgages combining land, sweat equity, and shared ownership

   • Equity crowdfunding

   • Tokenized finance and blockchain for shared land governance

   • Community Land Trusts (CLTs)

   • 0% cooperative loans

   • Philanthropic + ESG fund matching

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🏘️ Living Labs: Micro Villages on the Ground

Projects are sprouting across the province and country

• Cooper Creek Village – a visionary regenerative land project in the Kootenays.
  
• Big Calm – a remote work haven infused with creativity and intention in the Slocan.
  
• Queens Bay – a community that lives close to the land and lake in Balfour.
  
• Bluegrass Meadows – a self-reliant tiny home community in BC’s north.
  
• Thunder Bay’s Tiny Home Village – supporting transitional housing and affordability.
  
• Kincardine’s Attainable Tiny Home Project – creating options for local families.
  
• A CEO-funded Village for the Vulnerable – showing that compassion and capital can build a better world.

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🧭 The Call to Action: A Regional Barn-Raising

Who We Need:

• Non-Profits: Communication and engagement of these solutions to your audience.

• Credit Unions: Develop tailored mortgage products

• Landowners: Step up as partners

• Builders: Join the open-source movement

• Residents: Engage, imagine, invest, and help design this future

“Regeneration starts with trust, collaboration, and access to land and capital. Let the Kootenays lead the way.”

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📣 What’s Next?

The Manifesto for a Regenerative Kootenays is here! Please review and comment! Our next pop-up is at Starbelly Jam.

📧 Want to stay informed, get involved, or connect us with potential partners? Just submit your email.

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✨ Final Words

We’re building a future where small homes create big change—where microhomes, domes, and regenerative villages are not fringe dreams but mainstream solutions.

📍It starts here. It starts now.
Let’s co-create the future of the Kootenays—and inspire the rest of the world.

We are at a tipping point. Over 50% of Canadians are house-poor, and communities are suffering. But here in the Kootenays, we have the land, the people, the values, and the tools to do things differently.

The call is clear: we need a national barn-raising moment—a collective effort to support regenerative, community-centered living.

And with the dawn of AI and robotics, the landscape is about to shift dramatically. Automation will accelerate building processes and reduce costs even further. But the human-centered design, the local know-how, and the bioregional wisdom are already here.

Kootenay Innovation: Ground Zero for the Regenerative Future

Take a look at the companies and technologies already transforming the region:

• Twente Additive Manufacturing – Sustainable Building Solutions & #1 Selling 3D Concrete Printer in Japan but based in Procter!
• Skye Domes – One of a kind custom living creations, small homes, cabins, off grid homesteads and wooden geodesic domes based in Nelson.
• Canadian Tiny Homes – Over 40 years of custom home building experience from Nelson.
• Nelson Tiny Houses – Canada’s 1st tiny house company. Family-run and sustainably built in Nelson.
• Mint Tiny Homes – Mass manufactured tiny homes based in Delta BC.
• NovaDome – World’s strongest lightweight insulated dome shelter based in Alberta.

These aren’t pipe dreams—they’re living labs shaping the future of Canadian communities.

Kootenay Resilience Festival: The Movement Takes Shape

Last year’s Kootenay Resilience Festival brought together leaders, dreamers, builders, and community members in a powerful gathering of ideas, action, and connection. The festival was more than a weekend—it was a signal that a new model is emerging from the mountains.

Now, we must expand that energy into every corner of our region—and beyond.