It’s been a while since you have heard from me. Out of respect for all those who have shown interest in the plans and who have contacted me and wondered how it goes, I strongly regret this.

The reason lies, among other things, in challenges because of health issues as well as coordination of the planning process with the masterplan (KPA) for the municipality.

The biggest challenge, on the other hand, has been that another company has entered the picture and bought the harbour at Eide. This is now in the process of giving this company complete control over the further development of the village and to a very large extent limiting the possibilities for the Eide Ecovillage concept. The harbour has been a key part of the development of Eide Ecovillage.

In January 2016, a public meeting was held at Eide where the plans for Eide Ecovillage were presented in more detail. Very positive meeting where the case was well received. Then a situation arose where the municipality started revising the KPA-plan. A decision was then made to wait with a further planning process for Eide Ecovillage to coordinate this with the municipal planning work. The plans for Eide Ecovillage were submitted as formal input to the municipality’s plan program for a new KPA.

Then the fatal thing happened that the Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA) (formerly the Port Authority) decided to sell the harbour at Eide. The sale was to be made according to the following priority: first to the state, – if the state was not interested, then the municipality, – then to a non-profit organization and then possibly a sale to private individuals in the end if no one else was interested.

For a long time, I had some correspondence with the NCA. I pointed out that it was unreasonable for the NCA to have the opportunity at all to sell a public quay and public pier to a private company.

My father and his neighbour, in their time, gave land as well as road rights to NCA. Neighbour also gave all rock masses to the piers. They did this in the spirit of the collaboration and under an open premise that the establishment would benefit the village and the public. They would never have done this if they had known that the NCA would sell the port to a private company later.

In 2016, I established a non-profit organization «Eide Knowledge and Experience» (EKE) On behalf of EKE, I then made an offer, – in principle very low to begin with, when I in the process with NCA had pointed out that the only right thing would be for the NCA to return the harbour to the village, free of charge.

My offer was compiled with the private player, who in this case had significantly more resources. It was therefore completely useless to bid against this company, and I gave up making further offers. The harbour was then sold to the relevant company.

In August 2019, the new owner / actor together with the municipality held a public meeting where a rough briefing was given on current plans. There were many people present and many questions asked. A good collaboration was promised.

Right after the meeting, I then contacted the new owner and told him about my plans and encouraged cooperation. Even though I was strongly against the plan to this company I still chose to have a positive attitude. Yes, in fact, I tried to contact this company already in April 2019 when it became clear who this was.

Neither I, nor anyone else heard anything before receiving message of the start of the area plan. In a start-up meeting that the actor’s planning consultant had with the municipality, the municipality made a particularly gross omission by not inform about the ongoing planning process for Eide Ecovillage.

The plan proposal for the company has since received almost express handling further in the municipality.

Active argumentation has been carried out against the process and the plans from me and others in the village, without this having been given special attention. We have experienced that the remarks have largely been trivialized in the planning consultant’s presentation.

The company’s planning consultant then submitted plan proposals for the first handling before summer holiday this year.

After extensive argumentation, we managed to get the politicians to return the plan proposal to the administration with an invitation to a dialogue meeting and coordination of the plan proposal. So far, the municipality has not been willing to organize this.

It is extremely demanding to stand in the process. The experience is that the municipality favours the other part to such an extent regardless, that it is not worth putting more energy into this.

Eide ecovillage was planned to be a good and friendly project with a good spirit. Now the project has become something completely different. It has gotten way too much negativity, anger and ego attached to it. It should not be like this!

About 3 years ago, I saw myself that in 2021 I would have a lot of my time on Eide as a kind of project leader for the development of Eide Ecovillage. This is not how it has become, and this is not how it will be.
I have therefor now made the decision that the initiative and concept Eide Ecovillage will be discontinued.

The website and FB will stay open for a while to reach out with this message.

Many thanks to all that has inspired me, given me good ideas, and shown their interest for the plans and have been willing to participate in the project, (former restructuring organization in Hyllestad, UWC RCN, Sogn Agriculture and Gardening School, Findhorn Foundation, NaKuHel, Inn på tunet, Bergen ecovillage, Hurdalsjøen Ecovillage, Norges Vel, Pengevirke, Norwegian Ecological Society Association, Norwegian Permaculture Association… and more).

All the best
Magnar Eide