Time Challenges to build the Extreme Green Village
This portion of the design describes the Time Challenges and goals that represents what I plan to do and why.
There are a number of limiting factors on a how long it will take to complete an Idea Project like this. Time Challenges can be covered in two general areas. Money and Red Tape
Money
Seed Money -
To be used to keep the Project promoting and maintaining itself, developing the Website and to plan future actions. This is a waiting game.
Small Demonstration Project Money -
It may take at least a year to develop an engineering site plan for the full scale Extreme Green Village (or Extreme Greatly Green Cooperative Housing Idea Project), but the engineering site plan for the Small Demonstration Project will take a lot shorter time. Especially since we’ll compromise on some of the aspects of the Small Demonstration Project that would hold back getting acceptance for the small engineering site plan.
In that way as the Small Demonstration Project is being built, another focus will be to learn to streamline the site acceptance procedure for the full scale Idea Project and to prepare for possible problems.
Full Scale Demonstration Money
Red Tape
The engineering site plan will take at least one year to be completed and to get all the permissions. But the very nature of this plan ensures there will be more problems for this Extreme Green Village (or Extreme Green Cooperative Housing Idea Project) than the more normal and less Green housing projects. The first word is Extreme after all.
One aspect of the plan is to use a urine divergent, feces drying compost system. How long will it take to get permission to use this system?
Every roof will be a barrel vault design made with compressed earth blocks. Each roof will be covered with Greenhouses, gardens and plants. Will there be some involved process that will cause some building restrictions on this technique that was old and proven when the Roman’s used it a few thousand years ago in the Colosseum? Who knows?
Water. Rain-water and gray water will be collected and cleaned through a permaculture, living machine type system. Backed up with a final, filter/ultraviolet sterilization. But on top of that, with the Idea Project practicing 100% water recycling it will create an overabundance of pure water. The goal is to sell our pure water to the Austin city water system. How long will it take to pass the city’s restrictions to do that?
The Town Center will have Coop small businesses that first serve the Coop Members and then the public at large. We will be promoting green business creation on the Idea Project. Will the Idea Project have trouble with zoning laws?
In all these cases and in cases I haven’t written about here, there may be problems with Red Tape.
The truth is that Red Tape can be good. Red Tape can be what is necessary to protect the public. We just want to eliminate the Red Tape that needs to be changed because of new or unfamiliar approaches.
Time Challenges
When money is no object and I can immediately buy the 100+ acres for the full scale Extreme Green Cooperative Housing Idea Project, it will take 2 to 10 months to find the property.
Finding property 2-10 months.
Engineering Site Plan (both the Small Demonstration Project and the full scale Idea Project can be started at the same time.)
The Small Demo Project. 2-3 months.
The full scale Extreme Greatly Green Cooperative Housing Idea Project. 1 to 2 years.
Building the Small Demo Project. 6-10 months.
Building the full scale Extreme Greatly Green Cooperative Housing Idea Project. 1 to 3 years.
When only the Money is available to do the Small Demo Project, I can only buy a 8-20 acre site.
Finding property 1-3 months.
Engineering Site Plan for the Small Demonstration Project 2-3 months.
Building the Small Demo Project. 6-10 months.
While waiting to build the full scale Extreme Greatly Green Cooperative Housing Idea Project.
Besides promoting the Idea Project, giving tours etc. we can go in different directions. Building compressed earth block, homes and businesses. Developing Green businesses that will be on the full size Idea Project.
There is a description of what a tour of the Small Demonstration might be like. (see The Small Demonstration Project on the right column.)
Being Optimistic
Let’s assume there is a very wealthy Environmentalist that is really concerned about the fate of our World. They can see the value of what will happen when 1000 Green people live and work together on the completed Extreme Greatly Green Cooperative Housing Idea Project. Creating a louder and larger voice for Environmental Issues. Creating Green businesses and Green solutions. Or just being more committed to supporting Green Ideas.
This Intelligent and Far seeing individual can see that the money they give or loan, (at a ridiculously low rate), will keep paying back for generations.
Finding The Property (for the full scale Idea Project)
So money isn’t an issue and the large scale 100+ acre site can be purchased immediately.
The Goal is to buy property within 20 miles of the Austin State Capital.
The soil of the property must be analyzed so that it’s a good site for making Compressed Earth block. That only means that there is an adequate amount of sand and clay on the property. This is very important because the cost of each Compressed Earth block can go up if the percentage of sand or clay needs to be upgraded through sand or clay trucked in from other sites.
Ideally, the land should be generally flat or gradually sloping. There is a lot of land like that within 20 miles of Austin.
Also zoning and the cities understanding of projected use of the property can be limiting factors.
Finding the piece of property may take from 2 to 10 months.
The Engineering Site Plan
The Engineering Site Plan for the full scale Idea project will take at least a year to have it completed and accepted. But that won’t stop the preliminary engineering site plan for the Small Demonstration Project and additional Engineering requirements for the 650 Storage Units. (See Red Tape) That should only take a few months to be accepted because the Small Demonstration Project will compromise on aspects that will take longer to be accepted.
So while waiting for the full scale Engineering Site Plan to be completed, the Small Demonstration Project can be started.
(In fact, even if the full scale Site Plan was finished quicker than anticipated, the full scale Idea project will not be started until the Small Demonstration Project has reached it’s goals.)
Being Less Optimistic
Let’s assume there is a very wealthy Environmentalist that is really concerned about the fate of our World. They can see the value of what will happen when 1000 Green people live and work together on the completed Extreme Greatly Green Cooperative Housing Idea Project. Creating a louder and larger voice for Environmental Issues. Creating Green businesses and Green solutions. Or just being more committed to supporting Green Ideas.
This Intelligent and Far seeing individual can see that the money they give or loan, (at a ridiculously low rate), will keep paying back for generations. BUT NOT THE FULL AMOUNT AT THIS TIME. Only enough to start the Small Demonstration Project.
The Property (for the Small Demonstration Project)
So money is an issue. The Small Demonstration Project will be started on a smaller piece of property 8-12 acres. Large enough to:
-Represent a shortened, meandering street on the large Idea Project.
-To allow for a large temporary Quonset hut style building, 55-60 feet by 140 to 180 feet long.
(Using 87-91% recycled galvanized steel from MiracleTruss.Com)
-To create a small trailer park in the back of the property, providing free rent for help in building the Small Demonstration Project.
The trailer park would be 10-25 trailers. It’ll be owned by the Small Demo Project and later moved to the full scale Idea Project. And after that the trailers will be moved to the next full scale and the next and the next until they wear out.
The people living there must still have full time jobs or they can be retired but in both cases they must be passionate about green and working on this Project. The idea is that this is a project that will be built by people with jobs who will build it with their own sweat equity to keep costs much lower than normal. The more money saved in building the structures on the Idea Project, the more structures that can be built in the Town Center and more money for the more ambitious plans.
Some of these people moving in may not want to actually become Coop members for the full scale Idea Project. They may just want to have the adventure of helping to start the Idea Project. I hope the people reading this aren’t too jaded to appreciate the adventure and what I’ll be offering these people.
The Goal is to buy property within 20 miles of the Austin State Capital.
Finding the 8-12 acre piece of property may take from 1 to 2 months.
The Engineering Site Plan
The Engineering Site Plan for the Small Demonstration Project will just take a few months to have it completed and accepted. (See The Small Demonstration Project, farther down the page)