Help Rebuild PanCom — Connecting Our Communities

Help launch PanCom’s website and forum — a shared space connecting our communities, our knowledge, our skills and our people.

Across our region are around 200 intentional communities, Multiple Occupancies and other forms of community living — each with their own people, knowledge, skills, experience and stories. PanCom is being revived to help connect them.

The Pan Community Council (PanCom) was originally created as a way for communities to come together, share knowledge and resources, support one another, and work collectively with councils and government to help create the legislative foundations that allowed communities to exist and thrive.

After many years, PanCom is being brought back to life.

Our vision is to create a strong, practical network connecting communities across the region — making it easier to find one another, exchange knowledge and experience, collaborate on shared challenges and opportunities, and build greater resilience together.

PanCom's Aims and Objectives

PanCom's original aims and objectives remain remarkably relevant today:

Promotion of the natural environment;

Promotion of social interaction between communities;

Direct assistance in dealing with local councils and government bodies;

Fostering sustainable economic initiatives;

Promoting the general principles of Multiple Occupancy land use to the media, councils and the broader community;

Pooling resources, expertise and sharing skills.

At its heart, PanCom is about communities helping communities.

A history of communities working together

PanCom has a proud history of showing what can be achieved when communities come together with a collective voice.

The community movement that preceded PanCom worked constructively with government around the development of State Environmental Planning Policy No. 15 (SEPP 15) — Multiple Occupancy of Rural Land, which created a formal planning pathway for Multiple Occupancy communities in NSW.

This was enormously significant. It helped establish legal recognition for a form of communal rural living that had already taken root throughout the Northern Rivers — allowing multiple households to live on and collectively manage a single parcel of rural land.

PanCom continued that work, representing Multiple Occupancy communities and engaging with councils and government on the policies affecting them.

Almost 40 years later, Australia is facing a growing housing crisis. Planning frameworks have evolved, the needs of communities have changed, and new generations are struggling to find secure and affordable ways to live.

There is an important opportunity to draw on nearly four decades of lived experience and consider how Multiple Occupancy and other forms of intentional community living can contribute to the challenges we face today. It is important that legislation affecting Multiple Occupancies continues to evolve too — ensuring these models remain viable, accessible and relevant for future generations.

PanCom can help bring that collective experience together, providing a forum for communities to identify emerging needs and work constructively with councils and government to help shape planning frameworks that meet the realities of the present and the challenges of the future.

Connecting our communities

One of our first priorities is establishing a PanCom website and online community forum — a practical hub where communities and community members can find one another, communicate and collaborate.

Across our communities is an extraordinary store of knowledge built over decades of cooperative living — from environmental stewardship, alternative building and renewable energy to food production, community governance, shared infrastructure and sustainable ways of living.

The website and forum will provide a place to share:

knowledge, experience and practical skills;

information relevant to community and Multiple Occupancy living;

resources, services and expertise;

community events, gatherings and opportunities;

planning and legislative information affecting communities;

sustainable and local economic initiatives;

ideas around food security, land care and community resilience;

solutions communities have developed to common problems; and

opportunities for collaboration and mutual support.

Rather than 200 communities solving the same problems independently, we can learn from one another.

PanCom will also strengthen real-world connections through gatherings, focus circles and other opportunities for people and communities to meet and collaborate.

Focus circles can form around the things that matter to participating communities — whether that is food security, sustainable living, planning and legislation, community governance, skill sharing or other emerging needs.

PanCom is not intended to tell communities what they should do. It provides the network and infrastructure through which communities can connect, share, collaborate and create a positive future for our communities.

What will your donation support?

PanCom now has the basic administrative structure and bank account needed to move forward. The next step is creating the infrastructure that will allow this network to function and grow.

Funds raised through this campaign will help cover:

website development and hosting;

domain registration and associated online services;

development and hosting of the PanCom community forum;

communications and digital infrastructure;

administrative and operational expenses; and

other essential establishment costs.

PanCom is being rebuilt through community participation, volunteer energy and shared skills. Your contribution will help provide the basic infrastructure needed to turn that energy into a lasting resource for our communities.

Communities United

PanCom began with a simple idea that remains powerful today: our communities are stronger when they are connected.

Whether you live on a Multiple Occupancy, are part of another intentional community, have knowledge or skills to share, or simply believe in the value of cooperative and sustainable community living, we invite you to be part of what is taking shape.

Help us reconnect our communities and create a positive future for our communities.

COMMUNITEES UNITEDWant to join me in making a difference? I’m raising money to benefit NIMBIN AQUARIUS FOUNDATION INCORPORATED, and any donation will help make an impact. Thanks in advance for your contribution to this cause that means so much to me.