Encinitas, CA: Yoga Swami is a donation-based yoga studio co-operative who use a yurt for classes. The studio is being forced by the City of Encinitas to dismantle the yurt due to lack of building codes for sustainable eco-structures.
This issue goes beyond just losing an amazing place to practice yoga–it highlights the need for legislation to allow such structures to exist on a permanent basis.
Encinitas is undergoing a struggle to maintain its personality as a unique place with ties to the east, and is losing the battle due to special interests, commercial development and expensive real estate.
A Message from the Owner:
The Yoga Swami yurt has been sacred space for the community for the past 5 years. Yoga Swami was created based on the ideals of community support, stewardship to Mother Earth, sustainability, and simply being in the world in a different way. Although the City of Encinitas gave us verbal permission to construct the yurt in 2005, City Hall has now required us to meet current building codes, which from our perspective, do not support sustainable eco-structures. On Thursday, December 9th, 2010 we are being forced to remove the yurt.
As the owner of the yurt and Yoga Swami, this is evidently inspiring me to create change and prosperity for the future of sustainable eco-structures. While honoring the guidance of the Universe, I recognize that some events are inevitable and merely serve to encourage new conscious endeavors.
As a result of the closure of the yurt, there is now much opportunity for growth on local, national and global levels. If you wish to be educated or take action, please consider the following:
Get educated on sustainable building:
o http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/building_codes.htm
o http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/pdf/CSHHW.pdf
o http://www.networkearth.org/naturalbuilding/codes.html
Get educated on Green Yoga – join in the discussion for merging conventional politics with sustainable evolution and revolution
Write a letter to the City Council
o http://www.ci.encinitas.ca.us/Government/MayorACC/MayorCC/
Attend City Council meetings – be active in the community to create support for sustainable eco-structures
o http://www.ci.encinitas.ca.us/Government/MayorACC/MayorCC/
Vote – make educated choices for City Council
“We have an obligation to manage our limited resources so that we proceed down a sustainable course…we do not have the option of “outlawing” the most sustainable approaches to building. Yet, the lack of a larger context in code development and application has allowed this regulatory type of “mismanagement” of resources to pass unnoticed and unquestioned for decades. These are the issues of the next century that will be imposed on us whether we ignore them now or not.” – David Eisenberg, Sustainability and the Building Codes
Above all, the yurt represents a community with intention of sustaining mother earth and humanity. The spiraling energy created by the yurt and its inhabitants will only catalyze expansive creativity and Light. The legacy of Yoga Swami lives.
We will continue to create community and a place for sacred practice, maintain cultivation of love, beauty, peace and harmony for the city of Encinitas, and persevere in upholding natural, organic, eco-conscious surroundings as we intend to resume regular class schedule in a new location.
We hold our beloved Encinitas, City Hall (including the city council members) in honor, realizing that their intentions, as well as ours, are inherently good.
Thank you for the love and light you have contributed to the yurt.
Peace,
Dawn Singer
Click here to sign the petition to SAVE THE YURT!
