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Site search: Various questions about the property under contract were answered, and the legal boundary survey was done. The survey shows that there is a 60 ft road easement on the west side and 30 ft of a road easement on the east side. These both have legal access, and neither has a written agreement on maintenance. The closing was scheduled for September 5, but has been delayed due to difficulty in locating the legal record of the easement on the west side and by the slowdown in overnight deliveries. Conclave: The books on SEE prepared for the conclave were given to each attendee, Sam Liebowitz spoke on SEE, and the SEE planning group sponsored a hopitality suite each night. The net result was a wider understanding of the SEE project as the first FMF colony and identification of a few more potential investors and settlers. In the business meeting, a motion was passed which recognized SEE as an FMF project, while noting its legal separation from FMF. {I'm sorry I haven't the exact wording of the motion, and there may be a material misrepresentation in this summary statement.} Initial Planning: Richard Crews proposed a design for a double wide mobile home which could (a) serve as quarters for initial settlers, and (b) evolve into a cluster center featuring a large number of guest rooms. The results of a brainstorm of potential activities for SEE previously conducted by email were gathered and given a rough ranking according to how many members would be reasonable before undertaking the activies. A preliminary sketch of the property based on photos taken from its corners was posted. A survey of the property for planning purposes needs to be made after the closing. A number of the points raised in the discussions sampled below inidcate factors that will need to be included in drawing up a staged plan for development. Colonist survey: Jodi del Pozo put together a set of questions for potential settlers. Most potential settlers filled this out, and the results led to some very active discussions. As a result the mailing list was extremely active. I am not able to adequately summarize many of the topics discussed, but have pulled out a small fraction of the writing by the original authors. They are probably more eloquent than I would be anyhow. WARNING: About 700 lines of discussion summary follow. While long, this is only a few percent of the lines posted. Asterisks and lines of dots indicate text by me. Topics:
Cars, roads, and internal transportation
Cordially,
One topic of discussion was on use of automotive vehicles within SEE, and on the roads needed to accomodate them. Lenoue: there's hundreds of retirement communities without roads going to every domicile Lenoue: I've seen many retirement villages with wide walkways that are traversed by golf-cart-type vehicles for those who have trouble walking. Basically, when they putter up on you, you step off the path and let them pass, then get back on the path and continue walking. Lenoue: after people have lived there for a while and learned first-hand what's needed, they could build generic "carts" with holes, racks and what have you so they can be arranged and rigged for whatever purpose you need. I'm reminded of something I think was called box-beam construction (I'm blanking on the name of it, even though I have the book, somewhere, in a box). Basically, the carts and equipment are made of long square metal poles with holes all along the length. If you need to shorten or lengthen an end, you unscrew the easy-to-unscrew bolt, move the bar in or out (or add a new one) and put the bolt back in and tighten it up. If designed well, a cart like this can be easily and quickly modified to handle most types of loads. Lenoue: Personally, I would prefer we move away from overreliance on cars. Why cover half of SEE with paved roads? Why does everybody need their own covered garage? Why is any distance more than two blocks considered insurmountable without internal combustion engines? Besides, on Aquarius we're not going to have roads all over the place, so shouldn't we start working with that at SEE? Hunting: Most of Cushman's line of electric vehicles will do the job and they offer a variety of modular component options. I like their simple flat-bed line because you can add and remove components like insulated and non-insulated hoppers and containers, bench and bucket seats, and canopies or fully enclosed cabs as needed for different tasks. For smaller loads, there's the electric pallet movers you often see in supermarkets and, of course, simple hand-trucks, shelf carts, and the basket hand trucks everyone with a grandmother from Brooklyn remembers well. Certainly, such electric vehicles aren't exactly cheap. Elderly residents in retirement communities have been using golf carts and personal electric carts for a long time and prefer that because it affords them a residential environment free of dangerous auto traffic they tend to have more difficulty than the young negotiating with. The car is the single chief reason why conventional modern communities have turned so much of the landscape into an urban wreck. The car is the single biggest source of pollution world-wide, the single greatest destroyer of natural habitat, the single biggest consumer of fossil fuels. It's disrupted family life, torn the concept of community apart by isolating the private social sphere from the public social sphere, it's killed more people than all the combat fatalities in all the wars this century. What's the latest thing in accessories for luxury cars these days? A built-in air purifier. Figure it out... Hunting: I'm not advocating some sort of spartan asceticism here or survivalist-style isolationism. SEE cannot be a world to itself. The point is to set an example. We can't outright abandon the automobile cold-turkey when we live in a world that has been so completely crafted around the thing, when communities are so far apart, and when the technology our quality of life depends on is itself dependent on global scale infrastructures. But what we can do is take control of the situation within the confines of an immediate living environment. Hunting: The typical eco-village is nothing if not high-tech. The key is using that technology conscientiously in order to take control of one's destiny rather than having that destiny imposed by outside forces. Champlin: LET US GET OUSELVES TOGETHER ON LINE AND FIGURE OUT HOW WE ARE GOING TO DEVELOP AN ECONOMIC BASE TO GET RID OF THE AUTOMOBILE. We may want to look at moving into a small village and trying to develop an economic base that is car-disconnected from the rest of society. We probably also need to be more responsible in our selection of toys and other forms of entertainment for the kids. The presence of a carefully chosen library can help build an immunity to TV, and all the propaganda it spews. I am trying to see where I can change the local system to get people to see a clear advantage even though they have been misled by the media. Champlin: The garage is to cut your car insurance rates (comprehensive) due to the common occurrence of hail with thunderstorms in that part of the country. Carports with sloped roofs for resident vehicles will suffice, with a conventional garage if the group does vehicle maintenance on site. *In the absence of roads, there will be some sort of paths. If not legally roads, they might be single lane roads. One particular proposal by Eric Hunting was to use a hollow baordwalk which might contain some utility feeds. A simple boardwalk would be easily moved and have a relatively low environmental impact. Including utilities would make them more difficult to move. Lenoue: I still think Eric's boardwalk idea is best or SEE because we can use it like a tunnel but have much better access for changes. We could even pull out a whole stretch of boardwalk and relocate it if needed with less effort (and expense) than digging up one length of tunnel. Lenoue: I like Eric's boardwalk idea mainly for the utilities aspect. Buried utlities are great because they're out of the weather and not damaged by storms, nor do they get in the way of the view or activities (can't fly kites in most places because of the power lines everywhere), but if something does go wrong, they're a major pain to repair or upgrade. Eric's idea solves both problems. The utilities are out of the way, sheltered from storms, yet very easy to get to for repairs, expansions or improvements.
Related to the discussion of cars is discussion of spacing between houses. Reliance on foot transportation within the community suggests placing the houses close together, however this is not the only factor to consider. del Pozo: Another assumption I have seen is that the houses are going to be packed next to each other-someone said something about five feet apart. We're going to have plenty of room-we don't have to pack ourselves together that tight. We can, if we wish, space the housing out throughout the community's land. At the very least, we can plant gardens throughout the community. Flower gardens, herb gardens, vegetable gardens, more trees and shrubbery-there's lots of things that we can do with the space that streets would take up, without putting the houses much closer together. Lenoue: However, just because we won't put in roads or streets doesn't mean we won't have access. A good rule of thumb I've heard is to arrange things so a big fire truck could reach every building in an emergency. You can put gardens, shrubs, barbecues, soccer fields, chicken coops, whatever in those spaces. Hunting: Here again I think Europe offers us many useful examples. Arcosanti is yet another good source of examples, even if it is only partially completed. Also, the retirement communities can be considered to. The home-over-shop approach is only one of many options. (albeit the most obvious American example) And though building for fire resistance is important that should not be any more of an issue than with conventional town-houses.
A long discussion on Wiccan practices was also spawned by the survey. Most of it was not relevant to SEE per se, but some portions of it were: Judd: Well, unlike a lot of religons, Wicca is very strong on a love of nature (not subdue the earth), so it makes sense that they at least wouldn't be opposed to what we have in mind. Reed: I feel you should go for strict rules about offensiveness in public and loose rules when in an individual's room. This, of course, makes it no different from a normal neighborhood. Nexus indicated that this was the trend at his community. del Pozo: I figure we go for common sense rules about offensiveness in public, and whatever rules a household/cluster decides to make for themselves Amerika: i always get a little leary when people talk about "strict rules" (ie laws) about anything subjective. certainly there are things that we would all agree are offensive, but if we're talking laws, there has to be a clear line, and where do you draw that line? i'm sure that lines will be drawn, but i'm more comfortable with an evolving code than with strict rules.
The survey also brought out some discussion of home schooling. Liebowitz: I didn't intend to start a whole debate on home schooling. Please don't misunderstand me, I think the American education system sucks big time, but unfortunately it is the one we have to consider dealing with if we live here. My concern is the future of the children. If we intend to keep them out of the mainstream, then home schooling would be great. But what if one of them really wants to be an engineer so they could build spacecraft or something? Do you really think Rockwell, Marietta, or Boeing would hire someone with a home schooling background? This is just one example, but I'm sure there are dozens more you can make. Codina: School is not fair to children. It negates their individuality and forces them to work at the same pace as everyone else. The factory model is both horrible and outmoded. It no longer applies in the information age. A new model is required. Until a better suited model is adopted I veiw formal school with prejudice. Some children do very well in school, if mine prefer it to home-schooling, so be it. But I will not force a child to go through the nightmare I did. Patrick: There are at least four main reasons why folks homeschool, but the reason that might be the most applicable to SEE would have to do with the needs of TAG kids (Talented and Gifted). Your folk will be above-average in intelligence, and TAG kids aren't well served by public schools. It's true that homeschooling doesn't produce an accredited degree, but for TAG kids, a highschool degree isn't always necessary. We have a young member (13) who's very positive about homeschooling. The way it works (here in Washington state) is that starting in the eleventh grade, TAG kids can utilize a program called "Running Start" and take college level courses at the local community college. That way, at 17, she graduates with an AA degree instead of a high school diploma. Crews: When Gale and I were in Bastrop, we met an environmental engineer named David Coombs, a bright and helpful man, who had his 12-year-old son in tow--Robert. We were told that Robert is "home-schooled" and it works out well for all of them. I was pleased that this option is apparently readily available (legally, sociologically) in Bastrop. I subsequently talked to Linda Coombs on the phone. She also bright, cheerful, imaginative--she is very attracted by the FMF. So we can probably set up to home-school youngsters if we want to. Personally I think "home schooling" should go on the rest of the 24 hours a day when kids aren't in regular school--which has such important social and other out-of-family effects.
There was also a discussion on tools, for which I have previously posted this summary: Troy Judd started a discussion on tools by suggesting adding to Jodi del Pozo's questionaire the question: "Do you have any equipment or tools that might be useful to the colony?"
Walt Patrick, with years of experience in Windward community
commented immediately: Jodi del Pozo suggested some approaches to Walt's warnings:
<people's attachment to tools> On this last point, Jorge Codina commented:
>Just because it would be silly to sue don't believe that someone but still felt that:
>This is not to say that we shouldn't have community tools, after Jorge also had a perception that prompted Walt to elaborate further:
> >The Windward approach of requiring people to own their Walt also pointed out a weakness in Jodi's suggestion of training:
> >Another is for the community to own them and require a certain
Troy Judd initiated a discussion of library facilities at SEE: Judd: It seems to me we all have a lot of books and other media, and almost all of us are willing to let others borrow books. However, I think most of us don't want to permanently relinquish our books. One reason is that we might leave, another is that we might want to move to a different lbc in the future. This does not preclude a library, which I think we'd all love to have. It does mean a little more management, but I think a system could be worked out which would allow a person to pull some or all of their books from the library. *From this near term proposal, there was a lot of discussion on what would probably be relatively late in the library. Among the simpler systems called for was: Elrod: If we are going to undertake to write our own library software, let me encourage you all to consider making it fully MARC (Machine-Readable Cataloguing) capable. This won't be trivial in a flat-file system, such as mSQL. Some library materials have attributes that apply only to that particular media. Audio and video recordings have running time. Computer programs have applicable operating system. Librarians have been refining the MARC specification to keep abreast of new sorts of library materials. *John Champlin put this discussion into a bit of focus by laying out a potential series of stages of development of a library:
Champlin: 1. Randomly boxed books in people's homes. 2. Randomly boxed books in a 20 foot insulated container with a pad on a clipboard for sign out. 3. Randomly boxed books on shelves with environmental control in the container. 4. Books on shelves with Library of Congress call number labels and check card pockets. 5. Books shelved in call number order. 6. Bar coded shelf list number labels. 7. Actual purpose built library building and furniture. 8. Computerized circulation and card catalog. 9. Enter state-wide on-line ILL system. 10. Integrate datsets into the catalog for LBC and FMF usage. 11. On-line "seats" of commercial software for use by LBC members in the library. 12. On-line publishing of the various materiel with ISSN attachment from within the library system.
The possibility of a museum on the property led to several opinions on the ADA requirements that would follow: Champlin: If we have a museum or any other facility on the property open to the public, then the ENTIRE property and ALL structures must be ADA compliant. New construction does not get a waiver, unlike current structures. That means paved paths to support two powered or hand propelled wheel chairs IN ALL WEATHER. Overhead cover may not be required depending on the climate. *I do not have the quote, but one opinion was that the ADA regulations would only apply if there was an admission charge, and if the general public was invited to a museum. del Pozo: As for this complaining about the ADA, I have two things to say: One, why don't we put anything we make public near the entrances. Private residences at SEE don't all have to be accessible just because we're charging admission to the museum. Two, I think we should make as much of SEE as accessible as possible because it's a good thing to do, regardless of the ADA. Champlin: So we all look at carefully chosen building designs for fire resistance, build them closely-set home-over-shop, and accept the consequences. Champlin: The Act does not say paved access. That seems to be the way the Administrative Law Judges and courts interpret the act. *It is not clear what may be required by the ADA. While it is not directly relevant initially, it could impact early plans.
The discussion on cars and roads had a couple of interesting opinions on the conduct of small businesses expressed as a side issue: Champlin: A few words from the freelance crowd: "Deadline with late delivery penalty clause". Most free lancers live by being able to meet very tight deadlines, and cannot afford the money loss of losing their Mac for two days until the "monsoon" goes away. Could you keep your job if you stopped work with equipment if it broke and waited for the sun to come out before it went to get fixed? Most likely not. Lenoue: It's been my experience that those who demand everything right away and can't tolerate unexpected delays are _not_ people you should be dealing with. You end up spending more time with them and their jobs than with better clients, and you usually lose more money with them as well as a lot of dignity. Lenoue: If they have problems like that at SEE, there's either solutions or you plan for them. If they lose power once a month for whatever reason, then make sure you plan for that in your independent contract (like a lightning strike clause, here in Spokane, and in Idaho, Montana and the like, there are weather clauses that prevent someone from cancelling payment due to disaster-like weather. Basically, if UPS or Fed-Ex can't deliver due to blizzard or flood, your customer can't reneg on the agreement just because your shipping date was delayed a few days)
The discussions related to planning specifics, such as roads and libraries, led to some general opinions on the planning process: Champlin: So let us start the process now for each phase on this property, and how we will fund all these neat goodies and tools. If we do it right, we can even include things like diversion valves for conversion from leaching field to living machines in the original plans and plumbing specifications. Lenoue: Yes. The best way is to know what we really _need_ to start with, then figure in what we _want_ along with what we can _afford_. Then before we start building, we figure out what we want to be in one year, two years, three, five, etc, and try to plan those into our design with the constant thought in mind that _THINGS CHANGE_ and versatility may be more expensive at first, but is far cheaper in the long run. Champlin: The question here is how often and how thoroughly we will upgrade our infrastructure, and how often we will change from conventional dwelling structures to more ecologically friendly versions. Lenoue: Now _that's_ a good question! This is why I favored the "trailers now/houses later" approach, it allowed us to move in quickly and without too much cost, get things set up, learn the "lay of the land" (been my experience that no truly good planning can occur until you've lived on the land in question for a while) and hammer out the details of future plans (like you mentioned earlier). _Then_ we can build the houses and other permanent buildings. Hunting: You can't pre-plan contingencies for every possible extreme. It's futile and wasteful. You have to pick your smallest set of most-likely most-critical problems and disasters and take your chances or you will be forever in debt trying to keep up with the costs of your own worries. The modern art of logistics is based not on the ability to anticpate every contingency but rather on flexible response. Lenoue: On winter I helped a friend move four blocks in deep snow. After watching her and her husband struggle with some boxes on one load, I caught a bus to a hardware store, bought a mess of wood, caught the bus back, and made moving sleds. Learned first load that you had to keep them moving or they'd sink, but after that everything went smoothly. Never met a physical problem that some ingenuity couldn't solve or at least make easier to handle. Lenoue: But there's also an equivalent number of local power structures looking at the plans and saying, "Let's see if we can make this work." Last year there was a group in Spokane that wanted to build a straw-bale building for their community center. They were convinced thos nasty, evil, narrow-minded county regulators wouldn't allow it so the plan never got beyond the wishful thinking stage. As luck would have it, the group was fetured in a newspaper article and they mentioned how they wanted to use alternative construction methods but were certain they wouldn't be allowed. The county agency governing such things called them and said that they were more than willing to help. In fact, several of the inspectors had attended seminars and classes on alternative and non-toxic construction and the agency was quit eager to witness this construction first-hand in order to develop good guidelines. The building is almost done now and there hasn't been any serious regulatory glitches. Champlin: All of our options we discuss have at the very least opportunity costs. We probably need to seriously discuss the prices people can afford to pay for the concept of full ecovillage development. And to look at where we need to go to get the resources to operate this communal entity. What we can do up front, and what we will do later on down the line are most likely two different things.
Ingrid Moon drew an abstract design for a community in the absence of any terrain features. The buildings included were included as brainstorm items. The map also brought out these comments on design from Paul Lenoue: Lenoue: It's been my experience that when you're improvising or innovating, you need several diverse resources. Putting the shop/lab, the machine shop, and the fab shops at the far sides of SEE, as far apart as possible for them to get and still be part of SEE, I forsee a _lot_ of trudging back and forth, hauling parts from the machine shop to the fabrication shop then to the wood shop then to the lab then back to machine shop... >From what I've been reading, and what I've seen in high-density agriculture, we should probably integrate them all as well. Grow shade-loving crops under the orchard trees (or possibly run hydroponic trays under the trees, lots of outdoor hydroponic places spend a lot of money on shading to prevent wilt). Small patches of orchard trees (say a cluster of four to six) placed like islands among the organic gardens offer a lot of advantages. They provide resting and living places for birds and animals that eat harmful insects, they help prevent erosion from water and wind, and from what I've read, "islands" like these are just what we need for a good sub-soil environment (mycchrozzia fungus, shelter for worms, nutrient distribution, etc) Next comes the animals. Why pen them up in one location all the time when there's advantages to moving them around? Mobile chicken coops can be dragged over an empty or harvested patch of garden, where the chickens will eat ticks, fleas, etc, while fertilizing the ground.
Troy Judd initiated a discussion following several of the discussions resulting from Jodi's survey which led to Ingrid Moon calling for potential settlers to send her vision statements from which she would try to draw out frequent elements. Judd: In the lack of direct evidence humans tend to assume that other people think like them. One of the things that most concerned me about SEE when I first started to explore the whole idea (not that long ago) was the lack of discussion about non-technical matters. It seemed to me that we were all building our ideal colony in our heads, blithely assuming that our ideal was basically very similar to everyone else's. Jodi's survey finally broke the ice on this subject. Moon: The key word that got me responding here is VISION. It will be experimental, but I will gladly facilitate an online VISION QUEST of sorts, the goal of which is to hammer out a Vision Statement for the colonists. Hunting: I think you've made a very good point. SEE, unlike Aquarius or other TMP elements, has no specific model or illustration that people can point to as its ultimate form. The idea founded with a very simple idea in mind; to make a working cooperative community. Such ideas don't come with architects plans and models and there is no single definitive approach so everyone involved is definitely going to come to the table with a different mental image. I agree that it would be a great help if people could make their mental images and their expectations known in some plain way so that common elements can be found and differences resolved. Moon: A mission statement, in both military and business, is more what you describe above, the who what where when how. A vision statement is more of a far-end ideal, something to work toward, more of a lifestyle, workstyle sort of thing. It can also include the what and how mostly it focuses on the ideal state that everyone in the group hopes to achieve (knowing full well that ideals are just that, but worth working toward). For example, if I were writing a mission statement for my consulting business, it would read something like: "Rising Moon Media consults with small and large organizations to acquaint them with Internet technologies and provide a sound platform, and possibly a preliminary design document, from which to construct their Internet, intranet, and extranet solutions." However, my vision statement would be more about me, and what I hope to be doing and achieving: "Rising Moon Media will begin as a one-person consultancy and grow into a small consulting practice of four or five experts in Internet technologies. Small and large organizations will rely on us to analyze their business needs and goals and translate them into cost-saving and/or profitable strategies for implementing Internet-based solutions, before spending money on costly development vendors or internal production. Rising Moon Media will have the highest possible standards of professionalism in analysis, design, development, and presentation." Now, my silly little vision statement above would be a lot better if it stated more specifics, for example, what "highest possible standards" really looks like (we all wear suits, our documentation is flawless and incredibly easy to read...). A really good vision statement contains details that are measurable (like one-person growing to four or five experts). It also contains idealistic statements that the consultancy will hope to achieve, such as "organizations *will rely on* us", while avoiding superlatives.
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