Reality based solutions

I am calling out to all the tiny house community and the permies community. I see a land co op were everyone's mortgagee is 0 - 500.00 a month and no one needs permits for their house because they own it outright and are on wheels. Families can bring 2 or 3 tiny homes. The simplicity of owning land together without sharing ownership in your dwelling. Permaculture farming techniques can be employed to feed everyone.
The following are the biggest hurdles for people to break free of their chains.
Extremely affordable housing in a place that is healthy, spacious and community bases and safe.
Low start up cost. The average joe barely has a savings account. Tiny houses can be built well with salvaged material and quickly. The sooner you get to a place with cheap rent the sooner you can start Saving for the future.
Let's face it guys not all of us are going to be able to sell our hugal tomatoes at a farmers market and make enough to pay our mortgage. And not all of us are going to be paid permies. We need to find salut ions for average people to get on land and have enough time to practice permaculture without the pressure to make profit from it. Imagine someone who only needs to work part time to pay their mortgage on a land co op with20 acres near a place were they can go to their job in the city. These are the solutions that will affect the larger group of permies.

How about an urban farm? When I lived in SoCal, one common architectural design for apartments was a 3-sided building, with 2 stories, surrounding a courtyard. The courtyard often had a pool. Why not do greenhouse/Zone 1 inside that courtyard? Even if none of it is brought to market, just helping to feed residents, that's a start!

No city limits to much red tape and not enough space

Plus I think that would be more difficult to execute than private ownership of land. Plus I think the idea would be to feed the majority of the people off the land. Urban farming is just a feel good version of living in a city which is inherently way more unsustainable than living on land. Sorry for being so critical but I have followed this forum for a few years now and would like to see all the ideas show more connection to real homestead solutions for groups of people.

I disagree with the idea that cities are unsustainable. If all available land was used for growing some kind of useful plants (i.e. not solely decorative) the landscape would be at least partially self sustaining, with the added benefit of reduced need for travel and localized supply lines. If we all spread out to our own acreage I expect we'd be like locusts on a field of corn.

I don't want to squelch your idea for a tiny house park; it has a lot of merit. I just believe that cities also have their place.

I am not suggesting a solution for people in cities. I don't think there is a solution for the billions of people on the earth I have a solution for the permies who are stuck in the rent debt cycle and want to get out. Frankly I don't care about global issues I care about people who have woken up and want to take action but lack solutions.

Again reality based. The only way your are going to get all the usable land in a city to be edible plants is if everyone is starving in which case organization at that point will be difficult

Charley,

Your original post has a nugget of a great idea. Are you the one to make it happen? What would you like from the permies.com forum community in this thread?

Had anyone attempted this before. Do they have experiences of dealing with the local dep. what was the outcome. Can anybody see a flaw in the plan. Does anybody have any legal co op agreement experience. Any suggestion on the legal structure of the co op. And yes I own 30 acres in mendocino county and am currently buildin a tiny house. Also working on purchasing property in Santa Cruz, ca

Almost every area has some zoning or regulations anymore that would consider this to be either a commercial RV park or mobile home (trailer) park. And with that minimum requirements for roads and emergency vehicle access and water/septic/power availability.

I love the idea, but I haven't found anywhere this would work close to any urban area.

R Scott wrote:Almost every area has some zoning or regulations anymore that would consider this to be either a commercial RV park or mobile home (trailer) park. And with that minimum requirements for roads and emergency vehicle access and water/septic/power availability.

I love the idea, but I haven't found anywhere this would work close to any urban area.

Reclaiming a decrepit mobile home park on the fringes of an urban area would be an accomplishment. I'm thinking of several that are on the seedier margin of town, culturally speaking. The infrastructure and the permitting is in. Often these places are just being let to linger as land speculation.

I think Charley is using the right word: co-op. We have a rural electric coop and a phone coop that owns land and property for the benefits of its members, who still pay a fee to use the service. Heck, I even own a tiny fraction of two power plants. Those legal structures are well understood (not by me, by a qualified attorney!)

Because of the negative connotations of mobile home parks, in a rural area it might be easier to get a new development blessed as a campground.Taxing agencies love the idea of being able to tax tourists, who pay but don't vote. Just don't mention they are long-term campers.

Another legal structure that is well-established in rural Utah is the time share. Sell months. Minimum buy: 12.

In my mind the individuals would be undertaking a soft form of civil disobedience. In Santa Cruz you are legally allowed to camp on you property for up to 3 months out of the year. This is when I realized that it would difficult and resource intensive to build a case against the co op
To disallow them the right they have to store and use an r.v. On their own land. Let's be honest working through the red tape you realize they can write the laws how they need to so this is going to require us to take a stand.

Reclaiming a decrepit mobile home park on the fringes of an urban area would be an accomplishment. I'm thinking of several that are on the seedier margin of town, culturally speaking. The infrastructure and the permitting is in. Often these places are just being let to linger as land speculation.


I agree that would be cool but I would want enough land and a private water source for food production and peri culture practices

No worries on locking the thread just wanted to get the conversation going and it is.

Wanted to reply to the guy that was talking about the risk of my idea. The numbers I was talking about are for my region. Somewhere else the numbers may look like this.
5 families
10,000.00 down
Total mortgage of 500 a month.

Or
Every one comes to the table with 20 grand buys property outright. Either way you are choosing to take risk for the stability of landownership. If you don't want to deal with money just become a wondered and hopefully you die in a warm bed.

Tiny houses on wheels are a great way to bypass some zoning regulations. The same could also be said for other forms of "temporary housing" like yurts or other large tents.

I've never thought about a collection of tiny houses on wheel on one property. Great idea! It kind of piggy backs on the yurt village concept.

Nice! Love the yurt idea but in my county they consider a yurt to need a permit.

Another legal structure that is well-established in rural Utah is the time share. Sell months. Minimum buy: 12.

This sounds cool! How does it work?

Just wanted to let everyone know that I do like this forum and I am thankful for the ideas that I have gotten from it but I have reached A point in my experiences were I feel that the original problem we face needs to be addresed. Talking about rocket stoves is fun but how do we get more people into an environment were they can execute these ideas on their own land, be it co op or whatever. Does anybody disagree that the most difficult thing about being a permie is finding out a way to follow through on all of these great ideas? "A dreamer be damned if dreaming is all that dreamers do". Quote from rory millers blog

Oops! Did I scare everyone away?

What a shame.

I've had a few posts go completely unanswered. I suspect it's because they were either potentially controversial topics or people didn't have a lot of knowledge regarding the topic. I think it's hard to scare people off here unless you try.

I'm new to permaculture. I have a small lot in the city. I have had no trouble beginning to institute the aspects of permaculture that seem most immediately relevant to me. By my understanding of the definition turning a disadvantage into an advantage is part of what permaculture is all about.

It seems to me an excellent course of action is to learn what you local zoning codes and requirements are. You may be able to find a classification that meets your needs without a lot of infrastructure requirements. Then you can search for land available within those zoning requirements. When you find a piece that fits then find your co-op partners

Charley, it is a great idea and is something we have been pondering to see how we can make it work in our area. It is a great way to quickly build a community of like minded people for minimal cost. If anyone is in NC and would like to take action on something like this feel free to contact us.

Those who follow a nudist lifestyle know that many nudist resorts are actually more like villages, with a large percentage of permanent residents. Many are owned co-operatively by member/residents. There can also be non-resident members who essentially time-share some of the units. The housing is typically on wheels/axles, so passes through zoning entanglements, but if you've seen some of these, with the plantings around their wheels, which are deflated, you know they have no intention of ever being moved.