Kirra Community Plan & Map

The Kirra plan is a two-part plan. Initially a short transitional plan creating the basic accommodation and services to a long-term permanent local and national community focused plan.

Phase 2, the long term plan has now commenced. See the Power and Water plan together with biodigester gas collection infrastructure with road surfacing to start the next phase of the project.

Short Transitional Plan

The essential services and accommodation requirement was immediate from day-one. However, this was just the first step. All the essential services were established in the first 14-days. The water needs were met gradually over the first 90-days. All essential services had been completed as initial projects within the first 100-days.

KIRRAutility (Ku) have completed the initial solar farm installation. The solar farm is producing ample energy for the provision of lighting, refrigeration, computing and other necessities that we as modern humans have come to take for granted. The production is around 8 kWh  - 10 kWh per day and there is existing storage for 19.44 kWh (405 Ah at 48 v) with another 13.44 kWh (280 Ah at 48 v) coming on-line before the end of summer, for a total of 32.88 kWh of storage. This cumulative storage is to allow the community to continue operations during extended inclement weather events or a string of poor solar production days.

The initial 9,600-litre water storage and rainwater capture systems are in place and functioning. As at the 2nd of December 2022, all the tanks are full to overflowing after the recent 35.4 mm of rain that poured down over a 30-hour period. This is great as it provides a degree of water security as summer approaches. The captured water is broken into 2 categories, fresh and recycled. There are 7,600 litres of fresh and 2,000 litres of recycled water storage which is used on the gardens and for the toilet.

By the end of February 2023, this had been expended by another 10,000 litres. Bringing the total water storage capacity for fresh harvested rainwater to 17,000 litres.

By the end of February 2024, the entire community space had its road accesses defined and created, together with the community spaces, gardens and special features like lake, food forest, and animal areas marked out. All the plots had been defined and marked out and the majority of roads had been built.

During this process we were fortunate to discover a seasonal creek on the property which leads directly to the lake through plot #9. We kept this feature and highlighted it as a boundary to the community space, and built bridges to span the creek. Very exciting. :-)  Check it out!

Long-Term Community Plan

The Long-Term community plan is the creation of two hamlets one to the north, and one to the south of the main farm area which is shaped like a "Boomerang" and faces due East, at the apex of the farm is a centralised community space called the "Town Centre". The Town Centre will house the main community facilities such as toilets, bathing and laundry together with the KIRRAmaker (Km) space complex encompassing KIRRAkitchen (Kk) and other community spaces all under one 324 square metre enclosed roofed area. This Town Centre complex will demonstrate passive solar design and the various natural building techniques, such as rammed earth, earth bag, log and timber (post and beam), straw bale and other techniques.

The North and South hamlets are comprised up to 18 quarter acre living blocks (for a total of four acres) surround 2 three-quarter acre of vegetable, herb and other apothecary gardens (for a total of one and a half acres), and to the left of the living spaces is a 2-acre lake, the animal area and a 2-acre food forest and orchard. The food forest is significant for two reasons, the first is the food it provides, but it also provides a place for a community project called "The Garden of Memories". Community members will be able to celebrate the lives of people, both living and deceased, that have shaped their lives, in either positively and negatively ways to enable them to remember and deal with those traumas or issues or lost loves, family, friends or life in general. Each food forest tree is memorialized with a plaque and given the name of the person to remember.

Some of the living blocks are reserved for community visitors and guests. These are highlighted in the plan as green or blue. The yellow blocks are for full-time community members.

It is the responsibility of KIRRAretail (Kr) to manage and maintain the "rental" accommodations.

This sketch demonstrates the community layout and facilities within the community and their locations relative to each other. This image replaced the planned map, with the actual map of the community as it is today.

The Kirra road network is now 1,380m in length.