So where are we going to live?
Posted on Jan 7th by William in A place to live
The housing market has gone nuts. Our house – lovely as it is – wastes energy and isn’t epecially comfortable. I’m not convinced any of us live on the right scale when we live in isolation or merely as nuclear families. Neighbours are a lottery whether you’re cheek by jowl in town or in a rural hamlet.
I think we need to find a place to live and a new way to live. This may mean founding a community.
Some things you really want, like shared transport, good childcare and school runs, a big dining hall with range, a big screen and media server, a swimming pool, music/art room, herb garden and draught beer don’t make sense living on your own or as a couple (when one of them doesnt like beer). But these things all make sense if there are 8-12 of you.
So let’s draw up a rough spec and see if it leads to a shared vision. If it comes together – socially, practically and financially – let’s engage someone to go find it, then buy it and get going. Here goes:
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Aim: a rural high-tech idyll where we can
- live, work and play
- bring up children born in the twenty-noughties
- grow older in active dignity, comfort and reasonable self-sufficiency.
Scale: 4-8 households of varying sizes (might include one caretaker couple in subsidised lodging)
Geography:
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< 120 mins from central London
Zero traffic noise.
Morning sun
View, especially sunsets
Sustainable even in the event of weird weather ie
- independent source of power ideally wood or biomass (ie some land)
- fresh running water or well
Layout
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Reasonable privacy for each household
Shared spaces might include
- courtyard
- garden, kitchen garden, greenhouse
- swimming pool (definitely desirable)
- large dining space
- media room with screen and media server
- art/music room, playroom/nursery
- treehouse
- garages, outbuildings
Separate bathrooms and kitchens/kitchenette for each household
(and I need my own bedroom and study)
Car share scheme
Location: probably less then two hours to London. Less than 1.5 wd be good.
Governance
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Rentals and shared ownership is by contract with Genial Landlord
Decisions about running, shared activity, neighborliness and issues arising taken together by all residents
Money
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I think the money works like this.
Basic budget 2m ish to buy/renovate/build
Opportunity to rent/lodge, take “virtual mortgage” or invest in share(if residents have capital or want % of assets in property market)
When people want to leave first refusal back to project in the event of sale
Maintenance budget also, sinking fund etc.
Service charge (eg 10%) on each household, waived or reduced for those who help in more or less any way (gardening/farming, painting/ditches or whatever)
Option: Complimentary garret for resident artist or worthy guru
can get out of the deal anytime (say 3 months notice)
Fortnightly meeting for community harmony and to raise issues
Open-book accounting
Questions: how do we know boundaries of right behaviour, and what do we do if it’s wrong?
Is there a challenge/arbitration/mediation process?
How does genial Landlord avoid becoming the bogeyman?
Research
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Places to check out:
Iona Community
Jordans
spa: Chiva-Som, Thailand
San Benedetto Belbo – wireless village in Piemonte
Bergalo – where every house has a piece of public art
Sounds idyllic. Does it have to be in the UK?
Well, I’m very open to the delights of abroad, and happy speaking other European languages. But I think this needs to be a base for educating children in the UK school system. So I think it’s likely to be within two hours of the UK. If it works, let’s do another.
William
120 minutes south west gets you to Sparkford in Somerset on A303. You have GWR to Paddington or SWR to Waterloo.
I know it a bit through childhood and in-laws. A mate from uni. runs a property search outfit if you get further in your vision.
Fearnley-Whittingtonstall place in Dorset ( currently on tele chicken-shocker ) has some of what you describe and he had made a career out of the lifestyle. Perhaps you should ask C4 to back your hunt ( and I think it was a wealthy fellow who produced Hugh’s programs ).
£ 2 m ish does not sound a lot for what you are after within 90 minutes of London.
Good luck
Cheers Alex. I love Fearnley-Whittingstall’s vibe (and Enfield’s retake on it) but very much doubt we’ll want to invite the TV cameras in. On the dosh side I fear you’re right, but I hope it will provide the essential critical mass. Others may elect for shared ownership .I’m waiting to see what the spreadsheet looks like
If we are talking about the necessity to be near London,
then one should ideally have 2 places – one in the city
and one in the countryside…
chiva-som, som som
Hi William,
I think your vision for the project is amazing.
Im fed up of not knowing my neighbours or living within a community atmosphere.
Im not sure I would want to live so far out of London though, but it would be an amazing experiment.
Im interested in how you can put systems into place to make ideas like this work and be harmonious.
A site looking for people in glasgow to do a similar thing:
http://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk/
There is an interesting wiki site on Intentional Communities, which shows a collection of shared knowledge, information, and resources for Intentional Communities, those interested in intentional communities, and those interested in creating more community in their lives in whatever for:
http://wiki.ic.org/wiki/Main_Page
Alice
Hi William
What you’re suggesting sounds just right. My motivation would be the opportunity to regularly spend time with people from all different age groups – from kids to oldies. I feel like I’ve spent the last five years of my life exclusively hanigng out with twenty-somethings.
And my dream would be to learn how to grow tasty vegetables.
B
PS – not the same thing at all but perhaps instructive on community self-governance:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2238510,00.html
I’ve been looking at primelocation which tends not to be good at these things since it doesn’t really do anything above the single dwelling. Here are the limited results:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=51.883273,-0.911865&spn=3.09259,7.470703&z=7&om=0&msid=112269570694870051490.0004446b40f01532420f3
hope this map thing works – people should be able to edit it, if you want to mail me and I can add you. Perhaps this thing deserves a project page?
Oh wow. We know the Parham estate; it’s not that far from here, and my cousin used to be the architect for the main house.
I think that and the Kent place look really interesting.
Urgent need for the spreadsheet to start to model how much we can afford over the basic 2m starter. Clearly if we could raise almost the same again this is going to be quite feasible…
Yes, I think a project page is a good idea – do you mean on primelocation or elsewhere?
Lot 1 of the Parham portfolio is in range, especially with £24k of rent coming in for the airfield. And how cool to have one’s own airfield???
…but then again they value the airfield at £700k, which is a bit optimistic if it brings in £24k gross (plus you have to maintain fences, admin, tax etc. So it’s a poor return)
Hi William,
I love your vision, which is very similar to my own. I especially like “zero traffic noise”. It’s really difficult to find a truly rural location that doesn’t suffer from traffic noise in the South East, though. I’d love to hear more about how your plans are developing.
All the best.