Below are the values and guidelines that our founder’s group leans towards, to give you a ‘feel’ of our orientation. There may be workable organizational structures, approaches, or templates that we are unaware of.
The system of private property tends to breed inequality and exploitation. Until this system is dismantled, communities are challenged to find ways of securing a physical setting and ensuring collectivist values within a complex legal system.
GROUP OWNERSHIP
• In general, we feel that land should not be considered a commodity through which profit can be made by buying and selling. Though each community member will be ‘investing’ in the land through their buy-in, that stake will likely be represented through membership in a land-holding entity, like a limited liability corporation or a Community Land Trust. If the land is comprised of multiple parcels, these will probably be owned by the community entity—not individuals—to preserve design continuity. Provisions for separation and remuneration from the community will not involve sale of integral community land.
• Our sense is that we would like most of the community land to be collectively managed and accessed—that is, to be “commons.” We seek people with energy, resources, and passion for working cooperatively to shape a beautiful, diverse, and productive permaculture landscape and community center.
• Our permaculture master-plan will designate a variety of home-sites for members to choose from. Members will own the homes they build, although not the ground beneath. All construction will conform to certain covenants generated by the founder’s group, with plenty of leeway for members to be creative in their architecture and immediate surroundings.
• Membership in this community will be considered an investment in personal, social and ecological security. We seek people who have the financial flexibility to join playfully in this social experiment, and for whom a separation that possibly involves waiting some time for remuneration wouldn’t be devastating. The community will devote planning to a fair and equitable separation—or back-door—policy, including buy-in refunds, but this is not a place to expect your money to grow. We will develop a set of procedures for separation or expulsion that provides every means possible for members to grow through polarities and crises, rather than prematurely departing. That being said, there will be some actions for which the community has a zero-tolerance policy.
DECISION-MAKING
We aim for an egalitarian community in which all important decisions are arrived upon by consensus of all full members. Individuals and committees/teams will have the power to make medium and small decisions in pre-delineated categories. A thoughtful and flexible multi-stage procedure will exist through which newcomers reach full membership. If initial investors commit significantly different sums to the property purchase, we might find it reasonable to give larger investors more power over certain decisions, until such time as significant parts of their investment have been repaid. If so, we’ll plan to have this arrangement last for only a few of the early years.
BEYOND STEWARDSHIP
Thoughtful stewardship is a good place to start, in which people hold the role as managers and caretakers of land and resources. But a hierarchic relationship is still implied—the stewards are by definition held to be more capable and informed about how to guide the land than the nonhuman ecology that already exists there. Without undervaluing humans’ ability to observe, perceive, plan, and project through time, we envision these attributes assuming a more modest position alongside the wisdom of nature. We feel this is the true ‘mindset’ of many animist and Indigenous cultures, who exist within, rather than above, the living world. We also feel this approach will bring us closer to a joyful at-home-ness with our own innate ‘nature.’
TRANSPARENT PROSPECTUS
Once our founding group has coalesced, we will begin the process of developing detailed budgets and timelines for the move to land. We will be honest and forthright about the knowns and unknowns of our financial plan, and will lay these out in a prospectus and agreements to aid us in keeping our word with each other, and to spread the word about our vision.
rev. 4/24/2021