Aspiring Community Agenda Thursday, July 9th 7:00-8:30 PM Raap’s House
7:00-7:15 Gather and get desserts and drinks
7:15-7:25 Rousing, Unifying round of Jubilate Deo (or a new one depending on group druthers)
7:25-7:35 Ratification of Aspiring Community Guiding Principles
7:35-7:55 Report from JoAnne and Larry ( research and propose next steps)
7:55-8:05 David Miskell: “What’s new at the SV Farm”
8:05-8:10
8:10-8:20 Call for 2-3 volunteers for an “Action Group” subcommittee
8:20 - 8:30 Determine next meeting date and focus.
Please RSVP and indicate if you are willing to bring a dessert.
For South Village, a 22-acre development project in South Burlington, Vt., David Miskell, right, converted a segment of the property into an organic farm. Bobby Young, left, is a hired farmer.
SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. — The bewildered Iowan who converted his farm into a ballpark in “Field of Dreams” in 1989 might reverse the move today. From Vermont to central California, developers are creating subdivisions around organic farms to attract buyers. If you plant it, these developers believe, they will buy.
A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line.
Increasingly, subdivisions, usually master-planned developments at which buyers buy home sites or raw land, have been treating farms as an amenity. “There are currently at least 200 projects that include agriculture as a key community component,” saidEd McMahon, a senior fellow with the Urban Land Institute.
In 2001, investors in a stalled project with an agriculture component outside Boise, Idaho, recruited Frank Martin to take over their development. Mr. Martin had been a manager at Prairie Crossing, a subdivision built around a working farm in the Chicago suburb of Gray’s Lake.
By 2008, the 1,756-acre Idaho development had repaid a $12 million loan from the financing arm of General Motors; realized a 61 percent premium on the sale of its sites, compared with similar parcels with no farm nearby; and claimed a $2.8 million pretax profit by selling 785 of 800 lots, while keeping 1,000 acres open.
The success of the two developments proved the concept, and like-minded developers around the country are trying it on inactive farmland and even on formerly industrial land.
“Open space improves the return for a developer,” Mr. McMahon said. “We have 16,000 subdivisions around golf courses, where developers found they could charge a lot premium of 25 to 50 percent over comparable tract subdivision. But most people who live on golf courses do not play golf.”
The latest variation on this is blending in working agriculture, Mr. McMahon said. Living with a farm, he noted, can bring a buyer permanent views, wholesome activities for children, access to walking and riding trails and inclusion in an epicurean club.
Here in South Burlington, David Scheuer, a developer, runs a firm called Retrovest that specializes in pedestrian-friendly subdivisions. He is adapting the Prairie Crossing model with a 220-acre project called South Village, where he eventually hopes to sell 334 homes at prices of $200,000 to nearly $700,000.
A 16-acre segment of the property, which was not previously used for farming, is now producing lettuce, garlic and other crops, which are harvested for sale to homeowners and others from the area who have joined a local community-supported agriculture group. “Agriculture can be the caboose on the train,” Mr. Scheuer said, “and housing can be the engine.” Once he is selling 20 homes a year, he said, he hopes to pay the salary of a full-time farmer.
At the 220-home Serenbe project near Atlanta’s airport, the cachet of local produce has been added to retiree-friendly businesses, including galleries, a bed-and-breakfast and three restaurants. Steve Nygren, an Atlanta restaurant impresario, started the project on his 900-acre farm.
“We preserved forest and pasture, and there were 20 acres left for an organic farm, and we also have a large wildflower meadow,” Mr. Nygren said. “We’ve set up the design so 90 percent of the houses back up to one of those natural amenities. We are selling our lots at a premium that’s probably three times what the raw lot is.”
Mr. Nygren has focused Serenbe’s second phase on “edible landscaping,” he said. “At street corners there are blueberry bushes, fig bushes, peach trees and spotted apple trees.”
And in more rural areas, developers are buying big tracts of ranchland and selling small lots to buyers. David Hamilton, a principal in Qroe Farm Preservation Development, is pursuing this approach at the sprawling Bundoran Farm subdivision outside Charlottesville, Va. “We go through a mapping process to see functional agricultural units, if they are good for apples or cattle or whatever, then see where they go together.
Qroe (pronounced “crow”) leases some of the land to cattle ranchers and orchard managers. A buyer of a home site hires a builder from a developer-approved list. Qroe is marketing lots of under four acres for less than $400,000, Mr. Hamilton said. “You’re buying two acres but access to 2,000 acres,” he said.
Grady Lewis, a Virginia native who closed on his 2.67-acre lot in 2007 and moved into his 1,800-square-foot house at Bundoran with his wife, Diane, this spring, responded to Qroe’s idea of preserving “rural quality.”
When all the house lots have been sold, the rental income from the farmers, which currently goes to the developer, will go to the homeowners’ association. “Beyond it being great to see 300 head of Angus scattered across the acres,” Mr. Lewis said, “it’s a cash-flow issue.”
Farm-focused developers must juggle financing a few houses at a time with cultivating crops on a yearly cycle, so many rent farmland to professionals.
Mr. Scheuer hired David Miskell, a veteran Vermont organic farmer with a white beard, to help convert the property’s damaged soil. Working organically, which Mr. Miskell translates to “a lot of manure,” he and two hired farmers replenished the soil with enough nitrogen to grow greens, root crops and sunflowers this year. “Upfront costs are high to build fertility, but I doubt they are any higher than any golf course,” Mr. Miskell said. “Mainly, we are growing healthy organic food for healthy homeowners.”
Gus Burti, who lives with his wife, Maggie, at South Village, says the farm helped clinch their purchase after a two-year search of the area. “We used to live on a golf course in North Carolina and wanted to come back to Vermont,” he said. “My wife loves to cook, and we like that it’s organic.”
Because a farm’s open space takes land from the tax rolls, a developer often donates some land for public use. Hidden Springs sold a parcel to the local school district for $10,000, and Retrovest deeded South Burlington some land with road frontage for a soccer field and playground.
But developers stress that their housing units should stand on their own for the idea of the farm-as-amenity to click.
Mr. Scheuer, driving around a competing subdivision with nondescript open space, is convinced that despite the work that goes into a farm, it adds real value to a development. Scoffing at the look of the traditional development, he said, “If I have to do this to make money, I’ll find some other way to spend my time.”
I offer these wise words on community from the Hopi...familiar perhaps to many of you and still powerful. Love, Jill
“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the hour. Do not look outside yourself for the leader.”
He continued: "But this could be a good time! There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold onto the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart, and will suffer greatly.
"Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above water.
"See who is in there with you, and celebrate!
"The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration: We are the ones we've been waiting for."
Aspiring Community
Notes from meeting June 16, 2009
Sixteen of us met in ‘paradise’— the screened gazebo in the Raap’s garden with a view of Shelburne Bay. Present were: Lynette and Will, Nell and Chris, Martha, Nicandra, Joe and Melendy, Larry and JoAnne, Meredith, Katherine and Howie, Jill, Pam and Ted. We received regrets from: Christine and Sandy, Don Jamison, Alan Plumb, Connie Helms, and Julie Frame.
After a rousing rendition of Jubilate Deo, the Core Group (Nell, Lynette and Jill) presented the Guiding Principles—available on this blog. All are encouraged to post response, additions, subtractions to this living document.
We talked a bit about South Village. Will has been in conversation with David Scheuer, developer at SV. Will noted that in working with SV, we could be ‘a directing force’. A lot of the challenges of development have been addressed there, much of the effort done. We can use our guiding principles to lead the way in creating the community we envision.
A possible scenario with SV: 30 units planned over 10 years, start building in 4 years, build 5 units a year. ‘build out’ in 10 years.
There are many unanswered questions, eg. What will the houses look like? How do we accommodate members commiting and building at different times? When should we bring in new members? (One suggestion is to hold an open house in the fall, once we have more solid picture.)
We had a round where each individual spoke to three questions: do we see ourselves living at AC? What is our time frame? Do we support building at South Village?
The majority of those present are enthusiastic about the community aspect of AC. Many felt 3-5 years would be possible, some 5-10 years. There was general support for building at SV, particularly because so much of the work of developing is done. There are concerns about road noise, wind, vitality and fertility of the land, and the South Burlington water. Many appreciate the proximity to Burlington and possibility of public transport.
Our next meeting is planned for Thursday, July 9, 7:00 pm at the Raaps. Desserts are welcome. Joanne Dennee and Larry Sommers will present research on the water/chloramine situation.
RSVP on this blog!!
Submitted respectfully by Jill ---additions/corrections/comments are welcome
Hello!
Thank you Ted for doing the blog thang! Thank you Nell for having us last eve. Now we get to type!
One of the things we can envision is how we want to participate in growing, and helping each other to do that. In a way, Ted mentioned that last night when he said that not only are we thinking of how we are to be connecting in a community, but how we want to think of others in the future connecting to this community, versus another. What do we want to share with the world? How is our living together important for future generations? What does this mean and what does it look like? This may be a real stretch for some of us. However, it stands to reason that we have not thought much about how we have impacted the earth and each other... and now we hope it isn't too late to change this... and fast!
Whenever anyone wants to go walk around at So. Village to have a look, I'd be happy to go with you. Do we have permission to do this without reporting to or asking someone? I'm up for a picnic when the weather is dry again.
As the saying goes "Change is inevitable; growth is optional." I want to be participating with others to make these changes and learning and growing WITH them.
Love, Martha
Thank you Martha for starting the discussion! Keep an eye out for summaries of our meetings. Jill will be posting a summary of the last meeting at my house and I will post a summary of the meeting that Jill, Lynette and I had last Friday.
And yes, a picnic is in the plans.
Love,
Nell