Collective News
Uplands Community Collective in the News
Eric Kornacki is also concerned with economic viability of buying a home in Denver. In 2009 he helped launch a food security project that grew into the Re:Vision nonprofit in Westwood. He recently left Re:Vision for a new nonprofit called the Uplands Community Collective, which works alongside a home builder.
Kornacki is charged with ensuring, among other things, that locals are hired to build the development project Uplands’s home builder, Jeff Handlin, is proposing: 2,350 apartments, townhomes and single-family detached homes offered at different prices, as well as businesses and recreational areas, on a plot in Westminster, just north of Denver.
Handlin has received some push back from area residents worried about losing open space and gaining what they see as too many neighbors.
“We need density to make our neighborhoods more inclusive. I know it’s not popular,” Handlin said. “We all have to think about how many people do we want to have access to our housing eco-system. The tent’s got to get bigger.”
Uplands, a proposed mixed-use, sustainable in-fill community adjacent to the iconic “Westminster Castle,” today announced the formation of the Uplands Community Collective (UCC). Founded to create a thriving and resilient community in and around Uplands, the UCC aims to build a place-based economy that weaves food, agriculture and workforce development together with the project’s planned housing, office and retail spaces.
The UCC, a nonprofit organization, is led by community development expert Eric Kornacki. In addition to serving as UCC director, Kornacki serves as president and CEO of THRIVE Partners, an organization created to provide communities with the tools to establish healthy, resilient and inclusive economies.