Group of diverse people gathered in a bamboo structure at Alegría Village.

Alegría Village

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Established
  • Ecological
  • Town/Small City

Founding year

  • 2018

What we do

JOY DOESN’T COME AT THE END OF THE ROAD. LIVE IN JOY NOW.
Alegría Village is a new ecological neighborhood in the hills of San Mateo, Alajuela, Costa Rica, dedicated to best practices in regenerative living and design.
Nestled on 70 hectares (170 acres) of fertile farmland, Alegría includes extensive permaculture food forests with hundreds of fruit trees, edible community gardens, abundant springs and creeks that supply our water, and hiking and biking trails for exploring our natural surroundings.
Each neighbor has their own space – their own private land and home – and we all share a community center, pool & hot tub, yoga & meditation shala, coworking hub, permaculture farm, and sacred spaces tucked throughout the property. We now have over 135 neighbors, from 32 different countries (including many Costa Rican families) calling Alegría Village home.
Together we live a simple, grounded, intentional, and deeply connected lifestyle.
As an intentional community, Alegría Village is united by shared values and our commitment to upholding the permaculture ethics of Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share, and Future Care:
Earth Care: We are Earth Stewards
We are pollinators, planters, protectors, committed to living a lifestyle that heals not hurts the natural ecosystem around us.
People Care: We take care of each other
We are good neighbors, we are good friends. Together we support our children, our elders, our mothers, our fathers. We are an interconnected, interdependent community, looking out for the health and happiness of the collective village.
Fair Share: We are each a part of the whole
We all share a vision for a thriving regenerative future and each of us, with our diverse skills, backgrounds and contributions, are integral to the realization of this dream. The way forward is inclusive, collaborative, just, evolutionary, revolutionary. And we all show up for the revolution.
Future Care: We are Peaceful Warriors in service to the Planet
We radically question everything and design and implement better solutions for a thriving world. We are activists, aiming to inspire small changes, governmental changes, global changes. It is our privilege to ask, how can we offer support to our human, animal and plant relations? We are here on this planet to serve.
Our vision is a regenerative planet. A planet where humans honor and steward our natural environment and have a symbiotic, productive relationship with our entire ecosystem. Our vision is a place where all beings thrive. A place where our children can run free exploring and cultivating their natural curiosity, where our elders are supported and integrated into the fabric of our community, where wildlife is protected, water is respected, and food grows in abundance on the land where we live.

Our Mission

Regenerative planet where humans honor nature, thrive in symbiotic relationship with ecosystem, ensuring abundance, respect and support for all

  • Purpose
  • Ecological
  • Community type
  • Ecovillage
  • Intentional Neighborhoods
  • Sustainability practices
  • Regenerative agriculture or permaculture
  • Permaculture design
  • Activities
  • Others

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2018
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2022
  • Started living together

Gallery

  • 229 Total members
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
229

Primary decision-making authority

  • Small Leadership Group

A few people (not elected by the broader community) make the major decisions.

Decision-making process

  • Majority Vote

More than 50% agreement needed.

Governance structure

  • Representative/Democratic

Members elect leaders who make decisions within defined roles.

Economic model

  • Partial Income-Sharing

Members contribute a percentage of income to community funds.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • There is a one-time fee, investment, or share purchase to join the community separate from accessing housing
  • Members need to pay fees, dues, or similar to live there on a per month or per year basis
  • There is a labor obligation

Additional economic information

Join fee: Yes
Regular fees: Yes
Labor: Encouraged or suggested
Members with pre-existing debt: allowed

Community activities and engagement

  • Transition Town (post-petroleum and off-grid communities.)

Age demographics

  • Mixed adults (few or no children)

Property status

  • Privately owned

Setting

  • Town/Small City

Smaller municipalities with local services but rural character.

Community type

  • Ecovillage

    Integrated communities designed around ecological principles with sustainable living practices.

  • Intentional Neighborhoods

    Geographically close groups of independently-owned homes whose residents actively cultivate community relationships and shared values.

Sustainability approach

  • Regenerative agriculture or permaculture
  • Permaculture design

Land practices in our community

  • The community practices permaculture

Food systems

  • Community garden
  • Food forest
  • Land area size
    171 acres

Guest Book

Written reviews are available for plus members. Click here to upgrade.

Location

  • Alajuela, Costa Rica

Alegría Village

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

Offer
Need
Need
  • Forming Communities
2 weeks ago

A call for pioneers, trade-builders, and the four Elemental Elders to construct our first cooperative village prototype.

Intake Open: Flagship WE Network Village in Clubb, MO Call for pioneers, trade-builders, and 4 Elemental Elders to construct our first cooperative village prototype. WE Network is opening ground zero in Clubb, Missouri—our living model to build trade shops and train leadership teams for nationwide village rollout. We are building a self-sustaining, salvaged homestead ecosystem operating as a parallel society alongside existing systems. Bring your own living setup (tents, micro-campers, trucks, schoolies, tiny homes) to secure your lot within the co-op village. The 3×3 Exchange: Mental, Physical, & Spiritual Maintain your lot via our 3×3 exchange (3 hours/day, 3 days/week = 9 hours total): Mental: Classroom teaching, strategy, skill-sharing, and village instruction. Physical: Hands-on labor building active land and shop projects. Spiritual: Participation in our weekly Friday Fellowship Fire Circle. Trade Shops & Lot Placement Every member contributes directly to our local micro-economy: Trade Holders: Set up your specific service shop for the co-op. Transitioning Members: Assigned a trade lot to focus on constructing the physical shop structure. Weekend Operations: Retail open Saturdays and Sundays. Mid-week is reserved for building and life. Priority Intake: The Four Elemental Elders We are recruiting four foundational Elders: Earth Elder: Land, soil, livestock, permaculture, and natural materials. Air Elder: Building structures and Eco Junk waste-to-material upcycling. Fire Elder: Spiritual health, Natural Law, body healing, and Fire Circles. Water Elder: Resource flow, food storage, bookkeeping, and services. How to Apply 👉 Visit fffc.wtf to submit your intake request today.
Offer
  • Real Estate For Sale
5 days ago

Co-housing Unit For Sale in Portland Oregon

Light-filled 976 sq ft, 3-bedroom, 1-bath end unit in Columbia Ecovillage, Portland’sestablished cohousing community in the Cully neighborhood. With windows onthree sides, this ground-floor home gets natural light all day, even onPortland’s grey ones. The open living and dining area has warm hardwood floors and flows into akitchen with solid wood cabinets and granite counters. The dining roomwindows look straight into a native vine maple — a wall of green from springthrough fall. There’s good storagein the unit, plus an extra storage space in the community storage building.A ductless mini-split provides efficient heating and air conditioning, andthe plumbing was fully replaced in 2026. The primary bedroom has a full-width closet behind a sliding barn door; thesecond bedroom’s closet sits behind a pair of French doors. The thirdbedroom has no closet, which makes it a flexible room — guest room, office,or playroom. Step out the sliding glass door onto your own covered patio, which opens onto the community grounds: organic gardens, personal garden plots,greenhouses, a grape arbor, a bamboo grove, native plantings throughout, andtrees everywhere — including a truly massive old black walnut. The orchard alone is a reason to live here — to name a few:apples, pears, plums, figs, mulberries, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes,blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, in several varieties each. A75,000-gallon rainwater catchment system keeps it all watered through thesummer. Kids have a playhouse, sandbox, small soccer field, a favorite climbingtree, and a parking loop where bikes can circle but cars can’t; adults havea workshop, garden shed, fire pit, quiet space and big community porches. The common hall is the heart of the village: a commercial kitchen anyresident can use, a kids’ play area, pool table and ping pong, and asoapstone stove that burns every winter evening. Residents can reserve it forevents for almost nothing. The historic farmhouse has guest rooms owners canbook for visiting family (about 30 nights a year). Shared laundry rooms(three washers and dryers) come with indoor drying racks and outdoorclotheslines, and there’s a craft room and a trade room where things you nolonger need find a new home next door. Potlucks, communitymeals, work parties, and acres of safe space for kids to roam makethis a rare chance to own a home and a neighborhood at the same time. Built in 1973 and fully remodeled in 2008–09 for energy efficiency and healthy indoor air — metal roof, HardiePlank siding, and standard community-built finishes throughout. Nothing to update, nothing deferred. The $522 monthly HOA coverswater, sewer, and garbage, plus the roof, siding, exterior paint, and allstructural maintenance — and it’s what pays for the grounds, the common hall,and everything else described above. And it’s close in: Cully’s cafés andparks are a short walk or bike ride away, the rest of Portland’s food,music, and neighborhoods are minutes beyond that, and the commute downtownor to the airport is easy by car, bus, or bike – 3.7-acre grounds with organic gardens, personal plots, greenhouses, native plantings, and mature trees (huge black walnut)- Orchard: apples, pears, plums, figs, mulberries, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries- 75,000-gallon rainwater catchment feeds the gardens year-round- Workshop, garden shed, fire pit, quiet space, community porches  
Need
  • Forming Communities
3 weeks ago

Looking for: people building relational capacity, with a view to community

What’s here now: An intention, a framework developed over five years, and a programme running in central Victoria to find people to build with. No land, no group, no timeline. The question this is organised around: What makes a community of people living together sustainable over decades – where people enjoy being there, conflict is low, and the conflict that does arise gets handled in ways people value. The distinctive premise is capacity before formation. Most communities form first and build relational skill afterwards, usually under pressure. This one proposes doing it the other way round: people build the capacities first, and the group forms from people who have them. That includes a working idea about collective capacity – that a group has a ratio, and below some threshold it can’t metabolise its own conflict and starts consuming itself. Roughly: in a group of twenty, perhaps three or four with high capacity, most in the middle, and very few without. Untested, and something this project exists to find out. Governance: Sociocracy, with the intention of testing it meaningfully at scale rather than adopting it nominally. What’s actually happening: A three-week residency at a property near Castlemaine, and a practice group running before it. The medium-term aim is twenty to forty people at a rented facility. The long-term aim is a support hub sharing the framework more widely. What I’m looking for: People who want to build this capacity seriously, and who might eventually want to build something together. Not necessarily people who want to live here – the current property probably isn’t the long-term site. Happy to hear from anyone this resonates with, including people already in community who’d rather share what they’ve learned than join anything.
  • Events
3 weeks ago

Restoring Choice - free online practice group, from Australia

Restoring Choice – free sessions and a practice group Many of us are less practised at three things than we realise: making clear requests, saying no when it isn’t a full yes, and hearing no without something getting damaged. These aren’t personality traits. They’re capacities that were trained out of many of us by ordinary structures – families where some needs were allowed and others weren’t, workplaces that reward overstretch. They can be trained back. Why this might interest people here Most communities teach communication after people arrive, once conflict has already surfaced. This works the other way round – building capacity first, and finding out what a group can do when most people already have it. What’s running Free 60-minute introduction, online. Same session each time; come to whichever suits. Register for intro session below: https://events.humanitix.com/reclaim-your-power-with-restoring-choice Four-week practice group, Tuesdays from 15 September, 6:30-8:00pm. One session a week, and at least one short written entry a day about a real situation in your own life. The writing is the actual work; the sessions support it. Sign up by Sunday 13 September. Register for practice group below: https://events.humanitix.com/restoring-choice-practice-group Everything is free. Times are Australian Eastern 6:30pm here is the early hours in most of the Americas. Worth checking before you register. Who it’s for No prior experience needed. It isn’t therapy, and I’m not a therapist. Many people find that looking honestly at how well they ask, decline, or hear a no is less flattering than expected. That’s common, and it isn’t a verdict on anyone. Run by Glenn Russo – 13 years practising this material, seven years co-facilitating an NVC practice group in Castlemaine. If you’re already living in community and would rather share what you’ve learned than join anything, I’d like to hear from you too.

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