Part of Refugium
Rootworks
Rootworks guides groups forming intentional communities through the full path to owning land together: visioning, legal structure, property search, and acquisition, followed by property management and development. It also helps make existing urban homes resilient enough to serve as places of refuge during significant utility interruptions.
Who it's for
- Groups of roughly 9 to 16 people forming an intentional community.
- Urban households that want their home to keep working through significant utility interruptions.
Our land work focuses on the Western Sierra and the Northern California coast ranges.
How it works
- Visioning. Facilitated sessions gather each member's needs, surface priorities, and reach shared requirements. The process is modeled on the requirements gathering used in building commissioning, a structured way of confirming that a building does what its owners need.
- Structure. Governance and legal framework: bylaws, membership, property use, and decision-making.
- Search. Property scouting against your agreed criteria, including remote and off-road sites, working with regional land agents.
- Acquisition. Offer, due diligence (zoning, water, access), and close.
- Stewardship and build-out. Ongoing property management, then resilience infrastructure: off-grid energy, water, communications, and workshop spaces.
Urban home resilience
Rootworks also helps households make an existing urban home resilient enough to serve as a place of refuge during significant utility interruptions. The focus is power and energy efficiency, so your household can manage its own power and energy use for extended periods.
Availability and fees
New land-community groups join a waitlist. Contact us to discuss scope.
Rootworks is part of Refugium. About Refugium