In a city known for conspicuous consumption, choking smog and bumper-to-bumper traffic, a small group of like-minded Angelenos have chosen to forgo a life fueled by gasoline and consumer capitalism, and instead carve out a community where neighbors work together to keep their carbon footprint a petite size six.

Located just off Vermont Avenue between First and Second streets, the Los Angeles Eco-Village is slowly spreading its roots (and has been for some time) to forge a sustainable urban oasis where residents own property collectively, live locally and pollute minimally.

This small hamlet of sorts only occupies two apartment buildings on Bimini Place, but it has aspirations to one day expand into several other buildings along the street and a host of fourplexes on White House Place. That might take some time as its current incarnation has taken nearly 15 years to take shape.

Though the creation of the eco-village has been slow going, leaders understand that in order to create a community that will live on in the future they have to do it their way - the sustainable way.

That's why they intended the eco-village to be a limited-equity-housing co-op, which, barring any legal hurdles, it will become in a few months.

What that means is eco-villagers don't own their units outright but instead purchase a share in the property while still retaining the security, sometimes more security, to occupy their units as if they owned them.

Residents are not locked in for life however. Shares can be bought and sold, but can only appreciate a maximum of 10 percent per year, protecting the building from the speculative real estate market.

They also established a community land trust, a non-profit that acts as the developer for the community with an interest in preserving affordability indefinitely.

Currently both eco-village buildings are owned by the Cooperative Resources and Services Project (CRSP), a non-profit started by L.A. Eco-Village founder Lois Arkin who moved to the area long before the term eco-village even existed. 

Arkin and CRSP purchased the buildings in 1995 when they went into foreclosure. The structures were in bad shape from neglect and few wanted to live in an area where just a few years earlier the section of Vermont Avenue across the street burned to ground during the LA riots.

Arkin, the visionary eco-pioneer that she is, rallied CRSP's stable of members and asked them to make no-collateral, simple-interest loans to purchase the property, sidestepping hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest from a traditional mortgage.

CRSP made improvements to the buildings and slowly paid back its investors and benefactors with rent paid by eco-villagers living in the property.

Today the eco-village co-op is on the cusp of purchasing the buildings from CRSP at a below-market price of $1.2 million. The money will be donated to the community land trust to purchase other buildings and develop the co-op, ensuring not only expansion but also stability.
 
"This kind of thinking is what an eco-village is all about, setting up a system where you are building your assets instead of depleting them," Lara Morrison, building manager at the eco-village, said.

But the L.A. Eco-Village is more than just a housing co-op or an environmentally friendly community with solar panels, a gray water system and a community garden. To the villagers, it's a lifestyle and a decision to live sustainably, however hard that might be in Los Angeles' concrete sprawl.

That's why about half of the eco-villagers currently in residence have given up their cars, a symbolic gesture that indicates a serious commitment to living with less. 

"Adding a car to the mess that is L.A. is really dumb I think," said Bobby Gadda, an eco-village resident who was part of the motored class when he moved to Los Angeles but has since cast off his four-wheeled transportation.

Gadda now rides his bike everywhere and is working to start a weekly "cyclovia," a community event during which the city closes off streets so cyclists and pedestrians can roam free. 

But selling your car in a city built around a maze of freeways is not as radical a gesture as one might think for an eco-villager. That's because another goal of an urban eco-village is to build in a locale where resident can live locally.

With a Metro station nearby, a supermarket just down the street and all manner of other businesses, both corporate and mom-and-pop, eco-villagers don't need to travel very far - it's all here for them.

Many haven't commuted in years because they developed their own small business startups inside the eco-village.

The Bicycle Kitchen, a non-profit bicycle repair shop, started in the eco-village years ago and has since flourished. One resident is currently developing an organic coffee roasting company called Coficito Organico and another has started a successful brand of organic chocolates.

"The idea is that you are trying to have your work close to where you live not this idea of the suburbs and the long commute to where you are working," Morrison said.

However, the Los Angeles eco-village is not just a bunch of granola entrepreneurs and social activists working for environmental justice.  The area that Arkin hopes will one day become a true eco-village is populated by low-income working-class families who may be more concerned with paying the bills than saving the planet.

"There are a lot of class and culture barriers to deal with...sometimes people talk about, 'Oh the building should be more diverse.' or something but I don't really see how you could have people move in here that aren't college educated 'greeny' people," Gadda said.