This model is meant to be flexible and adaptable. There are many variables that can be changed to match circumstances. This model is also meant to be achievable, and so it is set forth in a staged strategy, starting with relatively small resources and growing incrementally as more resources become available.
The basic prerequisites to get started are, in summary:
- Partners forming a company.
- The company buying land that is:
- suitable for implementing the design.
- in a suitable political locality (zoning).
- accessible to a population center.
- Financing to achieve the above and to last until solvency.
Company
The founding Partners of a Center will need to form a company capable of evolving into the entity that will run the Center and the village. To deal with realities of the status quo, this company may need to start out as something like a limited liability company, as long its explicit goal is to become a more appropriate structure such as a multi-stakeholder coop. (This is the author’s best guess for an appropriate structure in the United States. Other options to look into include a Fraternal Benefit Society and a Church. However, a cooperative allows for the company to be a for-profit enterprise, which may be necessary, at least by US tax law.)
Land Selection
For more detailed advice on selecting a parcel of land, see: Evaluating Parcels.
Zoning is a complex process. The land you find will probably not be zoned ideally unless it is in a jurisdiction where there is very little zoning regulation at all. The parcel you find does not need to have ideal zoning to start, however. For phase 1, it can operate as a small retreat center, hotel, campground, bed and breakfast, or other similar conventional legal construct (this depends a lot on the nuances of the locality’s zoning code). Over time, however, it is likely that the Center will need to acquire variances from the zoning board.
Consultation with a real estate attorney is advisable as part of due diligence before buying any parcel. And/or to set up a “pre-submission meeting” with the locality’s planning board to discuss the potential for getting the variances that will be needed in the long term. Also note that some of these variances will not be needed for years to come, and in that time the members of the Center can work to make positive political and social connections with members of the planning and zoning boards.
The primary areas where zoning is most likely to be an issue are around:
- Operating a retreat center. This is a business operation that will be providing lodging and programming to “guests.” It will be classified differently by different localities and will face specific restrictions based on that classification. Legally those “guests” will be Associate members of the company that owns the land and runs the Center; and this fact might affect what kind of classification is applied.
- Cohousing. While it is not strictly essential to the model, cohousing is a vital element to work toward. (Isolating individuals/families into separate buildings with separate kitchens is unnecessarily wasteful of resources and is antithetical to a healthy social organization where humans live and eat together.) Ideally the zoning code/board should allow for several unrelated adults (and their children) to live in a building where they share a central kitchen.
- Clustering. As the village grows, its buildings should be grouped into small areas to have minimal impact on the land and to enhance community dynamics. Large parcels of agricultural/wilderness land are usually zoned as rural, and that zoning designation often requires that the land have very low-density housing and/or that no more than one or two houses can be built on any individually-owned piece of land. Localities that allow for cluster development may nonetheless require that the land be subdivided and parceled out to different owners. The most suitable localities will allow for multiple residences to be owned by the same company and clustered in one area. The fact that these residences might be considered “employer-provided housing” (a term used in some tax law) may affect how the zoning board evaluates these conditions.
- Combining the above. Some of the above actions may not be allowed in tandem. And/or solutions to getting zoning approval for one of the above might then preclude another one of the above. For example, running a business operation like a retreat center may require adopting a classification in the zoning code that then has provisions that preclude staff living on premises. Overall, the goal is to have land that will eventually be able to be owned by one company that has different kinds of members: some of whom are “employees” of the company and live on the land, and some of whom are analogous to retreat center guests who come to the land for up to three weeks to receive programming. The fact that all of these people are members (and in some way owners) of the same company may help navigate some zoning laws.
- Obstacles to a suitable permaculture design. One notable obstacle is that most localities require that all permanent residences be accessible to emergency vehicles (i.e., have driveways), and they may also require that driveways be built in specific, highly-destructive ways. So if suitable building sites are far from the road, the law may require significant destructive/expensive paving. Another potential obstacle is inflexibility in the zoning code around sewage: some localities may mandate that all sewage be treated in certain ways that are problematic to good permaculture design. These obstacles are not unsurmountable; but need to be factored into the due diligence of evaluating a parcel of land.
The land will also need to be in a location where people who want to attend retreats can and will travel to; and where offsite members can periodically visit. Locations that are remote from population centers have the advantages of being less expensive and more pristine. However, such locations will draw fewer people, will not be easily accessible to remote members, and will require heavy use of material resources (cars, airplanes) for any person to travel to. The ideal location will be accessible to a sizable population center by less than two hours of travel (or at most three hours), preferably with most of that being by mass transportation. The plan is for the Center to have a vehicle that can pick up people from a transit drop-off point. That last leg of the journey should be counted toward the two hours’ travel time limit, and ideally should itself be less than half an hour.
Financing
Appropriate financing will be needed to effect all the above and to maintain the company until it can operate on cashflow. Ideally none of the money should come from bank loans, as taking out a loan directly contributes (by the bizarre logic of the current global bank-debt currency model) to the creation of money and thus the expansion of scarcity, since a loan creates more debt than money. Likewise it will be difficult to accommodate money coming from investors, as the model is not set up for delivering extractive profits. (Possibly some creative forms of regenerative financing can be leveraged here, however. The author hasn’t explored this yet, but again, this plan is not designed to produce profit.) The ideal would be for the founding Partner members to be able to contribute all the needed funding from their own reserves and/or from acquiring donations.
Appropriate financing will include funds to:
- Pay for costs of establishing a business, including things such as government filing fees, legal assistance, accounting expertise, etc.
- Develop the full budget with projections, since this plan is generalized and cannot indicate any specific costs or incomes.
- Evaluate parcels of land. Outside expertise may be needed to evaluate the suitability in terms of zoning, permaculture, and civil engineering.
- Acquire the land. Including the price of the parcel, closing costs, and ancillary fees such as other expert help.
- Implement any vital initial steps of the permaculture design, such as essential earthworks.
- Build structures. It may be possible to proceed with this plan without building anything beyond a large cabin, as initial retreats could be hosted in the cabin and in tents around it. But ideally at the outset the company will be able to build at least one large structure suitable to accommodate 8+ adults (minimal staff plus minimal guests) for the purposes of gathering, eating, and sleeping.
- Effect necessary elements as per zoning code, such as well, septic system, driveway, land-grading, etc.
- Pay overhead costs of setting up at least basic retreats.
- Pay 1-3 employees for 1-3 years. This may or may not be necessary depending on the skills and availability of the founding Partner members.
- Pay other business costs such as marketing and insurance until cashflow is stable.
Many of these costs will vary widely depending on the number and capabilities of the Partner members, the location and characteristics of the land, the locality and country governing the land, and the choices made for how to implement the plan. At this writing in the mid 2020s, it should be possible to fund all of the above including acquiring a ~50-acre parcel of land within two hours commute from New York City for under two million dollars, possibly as little as one million under optimal circumstances.
The cost of the land is a huge factor in this area; and the cost of construction is a huge variable. In other places where land and expertise are less expensive, the above might be possible with much, much less funding. In an area where land is very inexpensive, and if the founders do much of the construction labor themselves (entirely possible with Bio-Veda style architecture), and if the initial Center is able to produce an early cash flow, the cost to get things underway could potentially be well under $100,000.
This plan is a detailed outline, but significant further planning will be needed by anyone trying to effect this plan. As soon as one has a sense of the cost of land in the area, work on building a solid budget with real numbers should commence.
Return to: Prerequisites section of the Business Plan