how should land be owned and distributed? any opinions?

i want to know what do people think about living in community like a cohousing or eco village vs living on a piece of land by oneself. i like private property but at the same time like community. just like the idea of owning land and running different businesses on it some day including selling timber for investment. i want to start a conservation business in the near future so this is why i am asking. and i need an opinion on this and that is what do you think of creating communities like rural cohousing such a 30 homes squeezed on 4 acres with common house and the 4 acres being isolated while the rest of the properties are private with no homes allowed protected with a conservation easement. so basically a farmer can live in the cohousing and own the adjacent private property. or should land have a single home and stay isolated like mainstream? any opinions on this would be very helpful.

Depending on where you are located, I would check with the county tax assessor.
Quite often, property (even rural property) is classified as "Single Family".

To have multiple homes, with multiple families usually requires rezoning, and often puts the land into a higher tax rate, as it is now considered as income generating investment property.

i think we need a healthy balance of both independence and sovereignty, as well as community and dependance. and that theres a reason people naturally developed habitation for themselves in neighborhoods, communal and sharing with each other as a tribe, and yet having places where they could have privacy and independence. one's own land in that sense....encourages people to be invested and connected, while living too closely with each other with fuzzy boundaries, especially considering how low many people's intregity is, just leads to many problems. so something with co housing, and clearly defined boundaries actually helps people be able to come closer together.

even though the modern form of private property is distorted and so off that it could inspire someone to try to go too far off the other side of the pendulum into community where no one owns anything....i think there is a form of private property that makes sense and is needed. but that kind of property has more to do with having a relationship with something, and time spent caring for it, responsibility and work...and not just one's own to do with as one wants, exploit and hold in a way thats a detriment to the thing owned in that way.

so basically i think people need to have own space, yet they certainly dont need more than a small amount of land unless they have the willingess to care for it in a way that produces food, or whatever other thneeds for the larger community....which can be communally owned.

Shalom, I am speaking for SHILOH SPRINGS...

Have you ever read, 'Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities' by Diana Leafe Christian http://www.amazon.com/dp/0865714711 We highly suggest those interested in joining a community, to read it to have a good idea of what a community should be, know the options of how it can be set up, so they know if they agree the path charted by the community they are considering joining is in line with their own ideas.

Many things we have adopted like vision and mission statements or types of memberships are posted on http://www.shilohspringsfarms.com/ . It was just recently posted so we need to do a lot of work on our website, but then this is the growing season, and it is taking most of our time.

We can legally place 21 homes on the property, but if we place Micro Cabins, then we may have even more. Room to grow... We have one home set, and two HUD approved single wides (1 three bedroom & 1 two bedroom homes) setting in the pasture waiting to be set.

What I am saying is this: there are Land Trusts, Non-profits, LLC's, condo/homeowner covenants/co-housings, and many different possibilities. And yes zoning is usually the largest obstical. However, it is not how you chose to unit, but your ability to deal with problems when they come up, and your ability to discern different (hard to deal with) personalities before you get involved with such people. And if not then afterwords, a process to work through such impasses to find harmony again. The goal here is not the same as society (babylon) or then why put yourself in such a position? There are great blessings for those who find such unity and friendship!

Shalom

now in these ecovillages and cohousing communities how does everyone have jobs if they are not all farmers? also i looked at the book creating cohousing but it seems that only one person does the csa farm or many people on the land run their own farm enterprises. what do you think of many private enterprises vs one where everyone in the community works in the one agriculture business?

Here in Northern Ontario, we seem to be going back to feudalism. Big companies are buying up thousands of acres of land. Much of this is related to peak oil as they are using this land to grow canola for biofuel. As the price of crude oil continues to rise, so does the cost of agricultural land. The prices have gone up so much in my area where land used to be very cheap that it is now very difficult for those who wish to get out of the city to get the money together to buy a farm. These agribusinesses could easily make their own fuel to keep their equipment going or bring in serfs from the big cities as the unemployed and underemployed can no longer afford food. A few years ago, I was hoping that we would have more small farms and be using more draft animals as the price of fuel rises but it seems like the opposite is happening.

Wesley johnsen wrote:now in these ecovillages and cohousing communities how does everyone have jobs if they are not all farmers?

Agency... if you have a business and wish to continue working in it, because you have your reasons, fine.

Wesley johnsen wrote:also i looked at the book creating cohousing but it seems that only one person does the csa farm or many people on the land run their own farm enterprises.

You cannot take peoples agency from them. We will work with those whom they want, in the different industries they think will be the most rewarding. For your information, one person could never run a CSA by themselves

Wesley johnsen wrote:what do you think of many private enterprises vs one where everyone in the community works in the one agriculture business?

To each there own... you might have one large Ag Business, and then others doing their own cottage industry. I have some friend who live in a community where they have a cabinet shop. It produces five complete kitchen cabinet sets a day. Many in the community members work there. They have outside employees who are members but do not live in the community. They have a large construction company that goes around the country building church buildings. And they have many many small businesses, as well as 1000 acres to plant and harvest.

Socialism DOES NOT WORK on any scale. If one's product or service begins to change, their market grows or shrinks, you have to adjust, or even close down that enterprise. Life is ever changing, it needs to keep up, and technology come with strings attached, cost, impact, different profit margins, and many other unforeseen things.

You try something... if it works, you continue. If not, you adapt, change direction, look at your options. This must be done individually as well as a company level or community.

Hope this helps, JW

My big fat opinion is that every household should have private zones 1 and 2, and that zones 3 and 4 should be common land, for crops and grazing. The herds would be managed by some subset of the community; either paid shepherds, or the boys of  the village, as is traditional in many, many places. Cropland would be rotated through the silvopasture cells, like on any such farming operation, and it would be allocated to households by default, upon request, or by some other such arrangement. The communal zone 4 agroforestry would be used for berry, nut, and mushroom gathering, and harvesting of trees from the communal forest would be limited to individual trees OKed for cutting by the community forester(s) in any given season. Perhaps when someone joins, and occupies a piece of land and begins to integrate, he should have to deliver a statement on how he plans to properly steward the communities resources to be a benefit, and not a parasite. Some people would be shoemakers, others, blacksmiths; some builders, others, healers. People would be free to make their own associations with each other and with those who don't live in the village. I would expect such villages to become producers and exporters of diverse items and goods, and they would import a few things that they themselves don't make or grow, but others do. This is just my idea based on zero experience and a lot of thinking.