Dozens of neighbors appeal new urbanism project Polestar Village in west Fort Collins
Erin Udell
Fort Collins Coloradoan
2/13/25
It takes a village, and that’s just what Fort Collins is getting as a new urbanism housing development prepares to break ground on the city’s west side.
Polestar Village — a 20-acre development with 144 planned housing units ranging from 450-square-foot “micro apartments” to traditional single-family homes — has started taking reservations for lots and plans to start construction on 18 single-family homes in June, according to Polestar Village president and builder Michael Gornik.
All but one of its single-family homes will be located on the project’s north side and will be built as part of Polestar Village’s first development phase, said Gornik. The community’s site was carved out of the former Happy Heart Farm property near South Overland Trail between West Elizabeth Street and Orchard Place.
Once complete, Polestar Village — a nonproft community built around spirituality, the new urbanism planning movement and education — will include its mix of housing, a community center with a commercial kitchen and dining hall, a wellness center for elder and child care, pickleball courts, a playground, a large community garden, smaller pocket gardens and a meditation temple.
It will be one of three intentional communities in Fort Collins, joining the existing cohousing communities of Greyrock Commons and River Rock Commons. Cohousing communities combine private homes with shared indoor and outdoor spaces to support “interdependent” community living, according to the Cohousing Association of the United States.
Montava, a 4,000-home planned community near Anheuser-Busch, has also incorporated agri-urbanism elements like a working farm and community gardens into its design, as well as multifamily and single-family housing, a community park, schools, trails and a “town center” outfitted with a small grocery store, coffee shop and other amenities.
On a tour of Polestar Village’s undeveloped property in early February, Gornik trudged through its dry grass and pointed out where each element will go. Eventually, he got to a well-tread walking path overlooking the 20-acre tract.
“To me, this is priceless,” Gornik said, looking out at the land set against the backdrop of Fort Collins’ foothills.
“It wasn’t that long ago that your real wealth was your community,” he added.
After raising their two children in an intentional, spiritual cooperative community in Northern California, Gornik and his wife, Ann, moved to Pahoa, Hawaii, where they built an intentional community and organic farm of their own called Polestar Gardens.
When the community’s main building was destroyed in the 2018 Kilauea volcano eruption, Gornik said he and Ann started looking for other locations to build a new community.
Around the same time, Gornik’s longtime friends — and owners of Fort Collins’ Happy Heart Farm — Dennis and Bailey Stenson invited the couple to take a look at their property as they eyed selling some land and retiring, Gornik said.
Compared to other properties and places they considered, “this one was more ambitious than we wanted, but it was perfect,” Gornik said, noting that the location in Fort Collins and proximity to public transit and bikeable roads were a big plus.
Polestar Village will be accessible from Orchard Place and West Plum Street, which will both be extended as part of the project. The new community’s traffic will be routed through streets in the adjacent Rogers Park neighborhood — a fact that led to concerns from neighbors and, eventually, an appeal of the Fort Collins Planning and Zoning Commission’s approval of the project. That appeal was ultimately struck down by Fort Collins City Council last year.
After working on Polestar Village for three years, Gornik said he’s ready to start the building process and see the community start coming together.
Aside from the construction of its single-family homes, Gornik said the project’s first phase of development will also include the construction of a detention pond and extension of Orchard Place and West Plum Street.
https://www.coloradoan.com/story/money/2025/02/13/intentional-polestar-village-community-to-break-ground-in-fort-collins/78330938007/?itm_campaign=confirmation&itm_content=news&itm_medium=onsite&itm_source=onsite
