Australia's longest-running permaculture community was a radical departure from the standard suburban subdivision when it started, but 30 years on the rest of Australia is starting to catch on to some of its pioneering ideas.

Crystal Waters, a private, alternative village in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, has about 200 residents, with many of the elements you would expect: roads, reticulated water supply, village green with resident baker, and even its own cemetery and fire brigade.

While its handmade style is rustic, the dedicated permaculture community was ahead of its time when blocks of land were formally approved for sale off the plan 30 years ago.

Les Bartlett is the eco village's resident sourdough artisan baker. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinninment )

When the 259-hectare property was originally purchased in the late 1970s, Queensland had no legal way to structure an alternative community, so its designers forged ahead with a body corporate structure — the first in the state to be approved for a rural area.

"This was a pretty radical thing back then," current resident Richard Giles said.

"Bob Sample first bought the land at the time of the early back-to-the-land movement, and he had the idea that he could invite people on here and create some kind of community.

"And people moved here. It was very basic back then.

"There was one building on the property — what we called the community house — that's still there. And that was the centre of the social and cultural activities."

An early photo of Crystal Waters Eco Village residents was on display at the village's 30th anniversary celebrations. ( Supplied: Crystal Waters Eco Village )

By the early 1980s, residents decided they needed a legal structure, and permaculture designers Max Lindegger and Robert Tapp were called in to help create an agricultural land plan based on sustainable land-use principles.

The plan was created for 84 properties of about 0.4ha each that would be self-titled, while the larger area would be community-owned land.

Angelique Wall was one of the first residents to live on the land at Crystal Waters Eco Village. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinninment )

Learning how to live together

Angelique Wall was 15 when her parents brought her to the Crystal Creek property, before the permaculture plan was in place.

What she found was "a whole bunch of people learning how to live together" and one house that had been moved onto the property by Mr Sample.

"It had showers and storerooms and that's where we would congregate and play cards and talk through the day's work plan," she said.

"I lived in so many structures at first. One had two-and-a-half walls and a roof and a floor, but not all the walls were there.

Crsytal Waters Eco Village hosts a monthly market in the village green. ( Supplied: CrystalWaters.org.au )

"I lived in tents, caravans, but eventually I ended up living in a 12-sided building called a dodecagon that uses passive heating and cooling principles.

"I grew up here. I grew kids here and now I am growing grandkids here. The kids all leave, they want to explore town living, but then they all eventually come back home.

"What keeps me here is the diversity of people. We've got dental hygienists, council planners, IT computer freaks and dead-set hippies. There's so many ways of thinking of things."

Permaculture teacher and author Robin Clayfield raised her daughter Pele Bristow at the village. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinninment )

Looking for a community to connect with

Permaculture teacher and author Robin Clayfield was one of the first to buy off the plan, attracted by the idea of a permaculture-based community.

"I never thought I'd move to Queensland, but when I drove past the Glasshouse Mountains, through Maleny, I had such a sense of it feeling like home," she said.

With a young child, she was also seeking a community to connect with.

"My daughter was two when we moved here and I didn't want her to grow up as a single child. I wanted her to have other kids around.

"Here was a community and village where kids could grow up together, and now I have grandkids who are growing up here for some of their life, which is very special."

The land was degraded, had a few trees and open paddocks, and was full of weeds when Ms Clayfield arrived.

"To see the difference between what was here, where there were no trees, and now you've got lots with buildings on them, gardens with food and trees growing. It's quite amazing," she said.

A rustic sign welcomes visitors to the Crystal Waters Eco Village. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinninment )

Leading the way in sustainability

Ms Clayfield said Crystal Waters had always been innovative.

"Normally body corporate is used for high-rises and units where there's individual freehold title and group responsibility for common land, which in an urban environment might be your mailbox area or the driveway," she said.

"Whereas here it's 640 acres and only 20 per cent is taken up by the residential lots and the commercial lots in the village area.

"The rest is regenerating forest and common land we can license to do projects like micro-dairies or bamboo farms."

The Artisan Bakery at Crystal Waters is located in the village green. ( Facebook: Les' Sourdough Breads of Crystal Waters )

The village was also innovative in terms of regenerative land use and early uptake of solar and composting toilets — things that are more commonplace now as the wider community looks for sustainable ways of living.

Ms Clayfield said the success of the Crystal Waters experiment could be seen by the younger generation moving back to the land, and that was what was needed to keep the village alive.

"What we are finding 30 years later is that our demographic is ageing and one acre is a lot to look after and people have less energy to look after the common land, so that's where we can grow and do much better. It's time for the next wave."

Jimmy Halliday (C) and his sister Fiona Halliday (R) grew up at Crystal Waters. They are with Mr Halliday's wife Kelly and children Isla and Lior, and Fiona with her children Ava and Jack Cassidy. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinninment )

Getting ready for the next revolution

One member of that next wave is Jimmy Halliday, who grew up at Crystal Waters and describes a deep love for the village's sustainable and community-based ideology.

But he suggests it may be time for another revolution, using technology to share Crystal Waters' pioneering lessons with the wider community.

"A slow and considerate and loving and 'without too much collateral damage' revolution," he laughed.

"That pioneering phase was able to test-run a whole lot of different methods, and now my generation is living in a world where we are globalised.

"We have so many platforms to be able to connect with each other. The question is, how do you take those experimental techniques and results of Crystal Waters and apply them in a new context?"