-
Space of Love (book 3)
THE
PROCESS
In
this note, we will be sharing the process that Emily and I have gone
through, from the very beginning of Santosha, right up to this point.
In that way, everyone will be able to see all the steps taken and
know how we arrived at our destination.
The
idea of Santosha has been floating around in space for a long time
now, more than a year. Only recently, however, has it become
something tangible, something achievable. From the outset, the
mission of creating a domain community has encountered many
obstacles.
Lets
just buy some land?
Initially,
our plan was very simple. We get 20 or so famlies together, we all
pitch in and buy 20 hectares. Sounds easy doesn't it?
In
our naievity, we were unaware that local council's have laws in place
that are designed specifically to prevent people from doing this. The
problem wasn't so much buying land as a group or planting gardens. If
we all wanted to pitch in and buy some land, just to plant some
gardens, then we could have started a long time ago. The problem
turned out to be housing.
It
seemed essential to us that people can live on their land. However,
council's don't want people buying up rural land cheap and turning it
into a suburban development. After some research, we found out that
the maximum number of houses allowed on a rural block was 2.
Subdivision?
So
the next option we considered was buying up some rural land, and
getting it subdivided. That way, we can split the block into 20
blocks and everyone can build their own house. However, after doing
some more research, we discovered that the council won't approve any
subdivision under 40 hectares. I was talking with a city planner
friend of mine, trying to figure out the solution. We considered
buying blocks of 'special rural' zoning, but that would mean
expensive blocks close to a townsite. However, we didn't want to be
too close to a town, and we also didn't want to pay half a million
dollars each for our domains.
Caravans?
The
next thing we considered was living in caravans. We figured that if
the council has such strict rules about permanent dwellings on the
land, then maybe impermanent dwellings would be ok. A caravan could
just be driven off the property if need be. A caravan might not be
luxurious, but we figured its the land that's important. Even this
idea, however, turned out problematic. The council also has rules
about people living in caravans, and we didn't want to live a
quasi-legal existence with the danger of getting evicted from our
kin's domain.
Has
anyone been successful?
At
this point I was getting quite depressed about the whole thing. I
couldn't see any way of turning our dream into a reality. I began to
look interstate at other communities, to see if there were any
successful models that we could replicate.
There
were some eco communities that were set up in the 1970's that allowed
for multiple ownership and dwellings on rural land, set up under what
is known as 'purple title'. However, this kind of title is no longer
approved.
I
found some very wealthy eco communities in the Eastern States which
operate like a mini-village, but the blocks were extremely expensive
and the land too small to constitute a domain. 
We
looked at other burgeoning domain communities in Australia. Maybe
others who have read the Ringing Cedars have figured out how to do
it? We found that there is alot of enthusiasm here in Australia, and
a few communities trying to get off the ground, but mostly people had
been running into similar problems that we have. There are some
communities like Santosha, in the stage of gathering people together,
but I could not find even one large domain community that is already
established.
At
this stage we even considered moving ourselves to Eastern Europe, the
land is cheap and the local government is easily bribed. However, we
didn't seriously consider this option. Western Australia is our home,
and the down-south region is beautiful on world standards. Our domain
community must be here.
Initially,
we never set out to start a community. All we really wanted was to
join a community and create our family domain. Truthfully, if there
was a domain community that already existed here in Western Australia
that met our needs, we would have joined.
However,
we had already chosen our destiny, and we knew that living on a
domain was the life for us. If there was not pre-existing community,
then we would have to create one. We remain loyal to our dream, and
every moment on the path is a pleasure :)
The
universe inspires
One
morning I woke up, and decided that I would just email the
Augusta-Margaret River local council and try and set up a meeting. I
can't explain why I felt motivated to do it on that particular
morning, but I'm very glad I did. Miracles happen every day. Perhaps
it could happen to us? If we could just talk to the council face to
face, explain what we want to do, then maybe they will be supportive?
The
month leading up to the meeting had an extraordinary energy to it.
It's hard to explain though. It was a spiritual experience that held
tremendous personal significance for me. I felt as though alot of
momentum was building. I felt creative and full of energy.
The
weekend came, and Emily and I were driving down to Margaret River. We
had drawn up our plans and thought up our questions. We were planning
on asking them about caravans.
As
we were driving though, Emily had an idea that got us really really
excited, once its significance had sunk in. We had to pull over at
Ludlow Tuart forest and draw some pictures in the sand. This idea
would allow for people to jointly buy land, build a house and best of
all, it could be approved by the council!
The
idea can be summarized as follows. We build one giant house in the
middle of the field in a octangonal or hexagonal shape. That shape is
then divided into lots of internal houses. People's domain stretch
out from their house like a pizza slice.
I
had to see it drawn in the sand before I could properly understand
how it would all work, but once I saw it I got very excited. I
pictured myself like a Lord, looking out on my land as it fanned out
in both directions, spreading wider and wider.
There
is lots more information about the housing that is still to come,
where we will go into all the details but the pictures above
should give a rough idea as to what the structure of one of
these houses might look like.
The
picture below is a working plan as to how the house might look when
joined up with all the other houses.
At
this stage, it was just an idea. It gave us the first real hope that
our dream may come true!
It
was this idea that we took to the council...(to be continued)
There
is a law of the Universe which says: A single creator inspired by
love is stronger than all the sciences combined, which are deprived
of love.
-
The Book of Kin (book 6)
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