Hey thanks for the questions! Here are some answers, though some may be half-baked. Anyone else who has experience on these topics perusing this thread, please feel free to chime in with your wisdom.
Regarding land ownership, this is not written in stone, but here is what I'm thinking:
Individual dwellings are owned or rented, as folks can afford. Rent can be subsidized based on contributions to the community (e.g. growing food, fixing things, etc.).
Common land will be held in a trust. It will be available for everyone to use for growing, or support of growing. If it is all getting used up (which would be awesome) then the community will make decisions to allocate its best usage. The folks who invested to make the land purchase possible will have interest in the land as beneficiaries of the trust, this will be determined based on amounts original founders/investors put toward the purchase. So those folks will still "own" some percentage of the common land, in some ultimate sense, but it will be available mostly freely for use by everyone in order to encourage lots of local food production. This is based on the assumption that some folks who invested in buying the land are not full time farmers (that includes me).
There might be some argument that someone who is freely using the land should at least contribute some of the harvest to the community's food, while being able to sell the rest of it if they choose. This needs to be worked out in a way that everyone feels is acceptable.
Honestly, I'm seeing this from the point of view of someone who wants to put some money into the land, but I might not want to spend all of my effort farming it, because I have a pretty decent job that takes up my time. I'm still happy for someone else to farm it. But some of the food production needs to be for the community in that case. To be clear, I do plan to spend time working on the land, just not full time by any means.
This is what I mean by a transition village - some folks will still want to keep their professional jobs (perhaps like your husband), hence the proximity to a large city. Other folks may want to spend most of their time farming. And a lot of folks might want to be in a situation where they can transition, without cutting their professional and personal ties by a move to the far off countryside.
Ok, if that sounds half-baked, maybe you'd like to help bake it the rest of the way.
To your thoughts on beliefs, I totally agree! The focus will be on the nuts and bolts practical good of the community, and folks are free to believe whatever they wish, but everyone must be respectful of others' beliefs.
BTW, I am also vegan. My proposal for a community standard would be that anyone wanting to eat meat would need to raise or obtain it locally. Personally, I hope to be part of a vegan food co-op, should this dream come to be a reality.
I would be happy to hear your thoughts.
