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We propose to build a land-based colony which can be either a complement to Aquarius Rising or a stand-alone effort. The colony is tentatively named "Space Environments Ecovillage" (SEE). The reasons for establishing this colony were addressed in Chapter 3, and the initially planned social and financial structures were discussed in Chapter 4. This chapter deals with actions and dates, the details of how we envision getting the settlement started. Getting from twenty to a hundred or so cannot be planned in as much detail, but is also discussed in the following chapter. The initial planning group attempted to put together a set of conditions that needed to be met and ways for meeting them. They hoped this would give a framework which could be refined to meet the needs of the group who actually move in. An introduction letter (Appendix 12) was designed to send to FMF members to invite them to participate in SEE. The letter was posted to the FMF-announcements news group in January 1997, and a revised version posted again later. A preliminary Website with documents which form the basis for the chapters and the appendices of this book was set up at the same time. The Website continues to have the latest versions, incorporating discussions of the chapters. This book is thus available at http://www.millennial.org/see/. We believe that a settlement has a better chance of long-term survival if it starts with more than the minimum number of members. However, since we each have our own constraints (such as ending a teaching job with a school year or completing some other personal cycle or commitment), we do not expect all of the initial members to move into SEE immediately. We do expect that there will be a rapid growth from zero to about twenty during the first year. At this time, twelve people have indicated that they are interested in settling and able to raise $5,000 by 1998. The first step has been, and continues to be, identification of potential settlers and investors. Settlers will need to relocate, find a new job, and put up $5,000 in equity. Since a person cannot be sure of finding a job or of having the equity needed, the emphasis is on locating people who are willing to make this kind of commitment if they are able. These are the potential settlers. Investors need to be willing to make a loan of at least $5,000 to another FMF member, with security of the member's share in SEE, at a rate of prime plus 2%, for a period on the order of five years. People who believe they can do this during 1998 are potential investors. "Financial backers" might be a better description, because they are making loans, not taking an equity position. Potential settlers and investors are also being sought from among the intentional-communities movement. We seek people in this movement who are strongly interested in space (if not ocean) exploration and colonization. As potential settlers and investors were identified, we found a number of expressions of conflicting preferences among identified alternatives, and also a number of suggestions to change some aspects of the planning. This has led, for instance, to clarification of how families would live at SEE. We expect further changes as people study the proposals and as we run into real-world obstacles in trying to implement our plans. Where there are conflicts, we seek solutions that are satisfactory to all those involved-not just a simple majority of the potential settlers. Some calls to radically change aspects of the planning, such as building this colony in offshore waters, can be dealt with by noting their unworkable expense. Some, such as radically different social structures, may be put on a list of experiments to be tried when we have a larger group. Others will be worth considering for immediate use. As people's individual circumstances change and as the plans move into a specific reality, we expect some attrition of the possible settlers, so the initial identification of settlers should exceed the number we can finance. When we have identified the amount of loans that is likely to be needed and the potential investors from within the FMF, we may need to go outside FMF to be able to finance 20 settlers. The first approach will be to ask all involved to try to locate additional investors from among their families and friends. It was expected that there would be a fairly clear set of plans, identified settlers, and means of finance by the end of March 1997. There was a clear set of plans by then, but since contact was made by email, the full FMF was not actively aware of the plans, and the number of potential settlers was smaller than necessary to start as a group in March 1998. It has also become apparent that people take different times to reach a decision that they are potential settlers. We also expect that it will take varying times (up to a year) to arrange individual finances and relocation. Thus, we are now planning for the earliest settlers to move in March 1998. After that, arrivals would continue during the following year. The site needs to be located. Our initial ideas on site location foundered when we realized that the proposed housing would require extensive local approvals that would be difficult to arrange from a distance and that would make a starting date difficult to specify firmly. Consequently the selection criteria were changed to put greater emphasis on locations with few building restrictions. The process used is described in Appendix 10. As a result we are now making offers on property near Austin, Texas in Bastrop County. Bastrop has no building codes for structure, plumbing, electricity, etc. It does have regulations for on-site sewage facilities (usually septic tanks). It also has regulations on subdivision, which have turned out to be extremely important to us. As explained in Appendix 10 on site selection, regulations may make it expensive to subdivide and have led us to plan on a housing cooperative as the legal form in order to avoid subdivision altogether. Appendix 8 (containing draft articles of incorporation and bylaws) discusses how a housing cooperative can be structured to achieve the control of a house by the household living in it. We had planned on final site selection by mid 1997 and purchase by the end of 1997. This appears to be on schedule. If something prevents our location in Bastrop County, the schedule may be delayed by as much as six months. After discussing the role of families at SEE and appreciating the great advantages families have for SEE and SEE has for families, the notion of a household was greatly broadened (as discussed in Chapter 4). The household remains the basic social unit at SEE. Some of the households, especially families, are likely to be preformed. When a household consists of unrelated individuals, it is less likely to be preformed. Since FMF members are currently scattered around the country, we need ways for individual settlers to form households. Information on the site should be available by the autumn of 1997. A master plan for the community will then be developed. This will include permaculture plans and septic-tank plans for a few houses, and it will be compatible with all applicable Bastrop County subdivision laws. An example of a possible, preliminary site plan, based on one property under consideration is shown in Appendix 10.
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