Advice on house search for couple seeking suburban home and around 40% self-sufficiency?

My partner and I are searching for a home and life/family circumstances have us focused on the region within an hour from Philadelphia. We appreciate the power of community and mass transit but also care about having nearby forest, and forest we can interact with to help meet our needs.

We aim to find around an acre or more, ideally with existing trees, and we'll fill it with gardens, coppices and useful hedges, bees, chickens, pocket ponds. We have no kids yet but are leaning toward some in the future, so that's a consideration. My partner is big on civic engagement and I run a small tree nursery and do some eco education related things; we hope to turn the 'problem' of suburban sprawl into something of a 'solution' in that we'd engage the community around us and give them living examples of how trees and nature can make our lives better while we reciprocate those gifts.

What considerations or suggestions do you think we should have in mind, as we search for some forest in a sea of suburbs?

For example, elsewhere on Permies I saw suggestions for folks relocating to find places somewhat near town centers but smaller ones (<5,000 people) - that way there's a local hub nearby to connect with others, while keeping 'town hall' and those kinds of things on the 'human scale' where we can get to know one another. Just one example of the kind of responses I'm hoping we'll get here - any tips appreciated to help us refine our search or make sure our move is a good one for decades to come!

I would suggest deciding on an area or two then finding a realtor to help you with your search and to represent you at closing.

as we search for some forest in a sea of suburbs?

Try Google earth for search for that forest in the suburbs.

Glad to hear your out there looking!

What I've found around KY anyways, is that land price and availability vary greatly depending on lots of factors, but the lay of it, size ,and proximity to a "center" are the big ones.

Cincinnati and Lexington are the two largest centers, both under 1.5 hrs from my rural location.

Then comes the nearest what I'd call a "medium" town. I have 3 of those within 30 min and the largest one has a population of 8000 people - which means restaurants, Wal-Mat, Home depot, etc...which can definitely be handy if one needs to "plug back in" for a bit :)

Then comes the actual town center that I'm a 5 min drive from. It's main spot is the gas station/deli. But there's a nice library, small auto parts store, post office, etc...population 400 people.

I can't figure out if you plan on the need to drive, and how far, when you are leaving your property for errands, work, etc?

I've been thinking about getting into buying land as an investment, in the 1-5 acre size within that 30 minute drive range of a "medium" town. Go in and do land improvements like gravel drive access and level areas, basic cleanup etc. Then sell to a potential buyer like YOU that would appreciate and continue to "develop" it in a very awesome way!!!

Are you into tiny house living and composting? That means you could buy raw land and setup your own way...or are you looking for an already built house w/ utilities in place?

Obviously the rougher, further away, and more land you buy the cheaper per/acre you'll get, but you'll have to dig around online and see what all is out there right now in your area (don't forget for sale by owner on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist)  to get an actual idea. Deed restrictions, county/city zoning should always be thought about as well :)

I also want to mention this. Those medium towns 30 min from me that I mentioned are more or less "stand-alone"

It gets different and interesting the closer you get to the major cities and all the "medium towns" (actually real cities and more code enforcement in these ones) blend into the one big suburban sprawl of that city (mixed with industry)...so there is dozens of them segmented only by the imaginary lines existing in the paperwork.

Do not expect or rely on your realtor to have any idea about town and state level regulations for farming and homesteading!    

Since you know approximately where you want to buy a place and it is in the North East.  I would start digging into the farming laws on the state, county, and local levels to figure out if NJ, PA, DE is better.  While NJ is a right to farm state the local taxes, zoning and permit requirements may not make is a good idea. I also know it has a bunch of land conservation trusts that will also limit what you can do with the land.  
Check wet land easement and restrictions on the state and local levels.  Here in NH they can render a smaller lot useless for any sort of home or business.  

Once you figure out which side of the Delaware River to be on then start digging into the local zoning and permit requirements in each town or city you are looking at.  

Looking at commercial zoned sites may be good option.  Agricultural zoning may of may not allow retail sales on site.  With the high cost of land and taxes selling straight to the costumer maybe the only way to make margins high enough to be profitable.  

When we were shopping for our current 2 acre homestead we found that different locations varied dramatically on what we could or couldn't do without permits or requesting zoning variations.  Finding a place with less restrictions is so worth the time.  We know too many acquaintances that bought homes to homestead and them found out they couldn't do what they wanted.  

Watch out for HOAs, deed restrictions, easements, right of ways, land trusts, historic preservation,  and wet land restrictions.   That part of the country has all of these.  

Make sure the property has a good solar aspect and is not a frost pocket in the bottom of a valley.  No need to make you life harder with things you can't change or improve.  

We had a list towns that we knew would work for us and a list of must haves.  We took a 10 applied PDC course that helped use figure out what we really needed to achieve our goals.   This list of needs saved us from buying something larger,  far more expensive, farther from town, and more difficult to manage. It also made it real easy for our realtor to help us find something because we knew exactly what we wanted.

Good luck and I hope you will document your progress once you find a place.  

Been there, done that, got lucky. Hubby and I had 1 week to hunt for a house when our kids were 2 and 5 years old.

Step 1 was to look for schools - the house we ended up buying had an Elementary School, Middle School and High School all within biking distance. We used the Elementary School, but I ended up homeschooling for Middle and early High School, but it still meant that resources were there and schools can provide a focus to build community around and a way to meet people.
Step 2 is to consider that your tool-box (permaculture) can make a lot out of little. I don't know much about Pennsylvania, but a quick look suggests urban sprawl on hormones. I'd take a page out of Toby Hemenway's book and look for something like his duplex on enough land that would benefit from major rehab. Or a neighborhood that's got abandoned properties in it that could form up a block of land that could be rehabilitated. There are some effective urban farms that have done that. Plants and fungi can go a long way to rehabbing land. The major advantage of that is less driving. I rarely drove my car more than once a week - I still don't. I don't need to. We were rural enough that the kids did sometimes need a drive to friends, until they were old enough to bike safely, or in the dead of winter when light was an issue. This led to kids that had common sense, responsibility and independence developing steadily - they tested gravity at young enough ages that they still bounced, instead of at age 16 in a car!
Step 3 is to think outside the box. There's a lot out there - a group in Portland bought an apartment building and tore up the parking lots and has something like a 300 person wait list and enough food to sell at the farmer's market. There are lots of similar stories out there - I'm sure I read about a college that decided their football team was costing too much money, so they turned that field into a farm and the students got "paid" for working on farm-related tasks by credit against course fees. Look for opportunities, rather than looking for perfection on a plate.

good luck!

Fruit trees are harder back east, but vegetables are easier.
John s
Pdx or

Up here outdoor animals permitted would be the first criteria to look for if that is important.   It's a city by city ordinance here as to what is or is not allowed.   Technically even my outdoor rabbit is not allowed, no outdoor animals of any kind.   Chickens or ducks or anything that makes noise or is more obvious is out of the question,  while 3 of the surrounding towns allow backyard chickens with different numbers of restrictions and contingencies (no roosters,  less than 5,  permit first, etc).  

Yes, Heather,
Around here many of the suburbs banned chickens and rabbits in the 1950's. However, a lot of people are starting to wake up. They've gone to the city council meetings and put these questions on the ballot. Many now allow chickens and rabbits because they've changed the laws in the last 10 years.
John S
PDX OR