G'day folks, I'm a newbee here, what do you think of this ?

We are retired, living in Sydney and hardly ever see our neighbours; we are tired of the traffic and want a community lifestyle in a semi rural location with easy travel to the kids in Sydney.

We've looked at over 50's villages but the homes are crammed into very small plots. We’ve looked at small acreage properties but they lack the community lifestyle. We've looked at Intentional Communities (communes) but they sound too hairy fairy and rather risky to me.

So, I'm thinking; why not find say 20 like minded people, set up a management company, buy a 100 acre property for say $3 million, build a few roads etc etc, buy your own Manufactured Home (typically $150k to $250K) and run the whole thing as a council approved Manufactured Homes village.

Is it possible to get planning permission for such a scheme ?.

If it can be made to work, it's a community lifestyle for around $500K on 100 acres.

Thanks, have fun
Paul C

Our neighbour is developing 3 x 5acre blocks and a local tried to punch his head. 20 investor owners on common land ? yikes..

If you have an subdivided 100 acres you are in for a torrid time i say, the legals would be a nightmare.
If you have a subdivided 100 acres with twenty residences it becomes an owners corporation. Which means shared insurance and shared costs of whatever the excess land consists of. That in itself has possibilities and disadvantages. It needs legal consensus of the original 20 residences.

Dear Paul,

We live in Australia's most liveable city - Melbourne.
And we're very happy here. We would not consider
what you're suggesting. However, when it was time for
us to move out of our homes - we'd be looking at
Retirement Villages, and if we couldn't find what we
wanted in the Melbourne are - my preference would be
towards the mid North Coast of NSW. Port Macquarie,
Coffs Harbour, South West Rocks, et cetera. There's
approx 108 Retirement Villages in the mid North Coast
area. I'm sure we'd find what we wanted at a price we could
afford and its an area that's within easy reach of both
Sydney and Melbourne.

cont'd ...

BTW - what you're suggesting is nothing new.
Developers have developed new areas of suburban
housing, retirement villages, and housing
communities in established country towns where
people can find the ideal life that you are seeking.
Admittedly what you're proposing might be difficult
to find 20 like-minded
people to join you. In any community no matter how
ideally it is planned disagreements, discrepancies,
and disappointments will eventuate.

Hi Paul & welcome.

You can still have a great community on acreage, I guess it depends on what you mean as a community. Mine covers about 75 square kilometres, but has been a great community.

Many are on acreage blocks from just one to about 30, but we all consider ourselves part of our central village. We have just a service station, hardware store, a produce store, a convenience shop & a tavern, but also the Community hall, little athletics, horse & pony club, soccer club, tennis & netball courts & the rural fire brigade in the same general area.

We have grown from 600 homes when we first started out rural watch, [neighbourhood watch for the bush], about 10 years ago to over a thousand now. I do find the greater number does dilute the community a little, but most of us still know each other, & join in all the projects involved.

Personally I wouldn't want to live any closer to my neighbours, new years eve parties were close enough thanks, but this type of spread out community can be pretty good, giving the best of both worlds.

Hasbeen
Is that a planned development on 1 title deed or a tree-change population increase in ordinary small village?

No not a planned development, just some tree change, some retirement & some prepared for a long commute to Brisbane or the Gold Coast, so they or the kids can have horses.

I'm here actually so the kids could go to what was good country town schools, rather than the drug soaked Gold Coast schools, & for the horse thing. Yes it was a long Commute, but worth it.

A lot of the kids we were running the sports activities for, are now running them for their own kids.

Thanks for the comments folks

Hasbeen, thanks for your comments and the question “what do I mean by community lifestyle ?”. My answer is, I’m not sure. I’ve spent most of my life living in large towns or cities so I have yet to experience the rural community life where people know each other. That’s part of the attraction but I’d also like to learn something useful (before it’s too late), like how to grow food and raise livestock. I was an Engineer in my former life so I like to know how thing work and we’ve had chickens and ducks in our back yard in Sydney. I’d like to experiment with self sufficiency, solar panels, solar water heating, rainwater tanks, septic tanks, aquaponics etc. We’ve spent the last five years travelling Europe and Australia in a motor home so we quite like the back to basics lifestyle without all of the clutter that we all seem to accumulate over time. While travelling about we’ve looked at quite a few over 50’s villages (Manufactured Home Estates) and they seem to have everything we could want eg. shared swimming pool, BBQ area, spar, bowling green, men’s shed, craft groups, veggie plot and bingo etc. It’s a cheap low maintenance lifestyle (the ground rent covers the maintenance for all of the common areas, typically $150 - $200 per week plus gas and electric bills), it sounds like fun but it’s not utopia, not everybody gets on with everybody but that’s life. The main downside as far as I can see is the homes are on very small plots, typically 2 or 3 metres between the buildings. And that is what led me to my “silly question”. I can’t see anything in the council regs and zoning requirements that would prohibit my idea, the land size can be anything greater than 1 hectare (2.5 acres).

Have fun
Paul C

I moved to Bali. I've done the cities, in Europe, North Africa and all over Asia, and I've done the 500acre Mid North Coast farm, where the kids grew up. Now everything is different. Obviously I don't live near the chaotic Bali, but up on the tablelands. I wish I had moved here years before. I travel all over Indonesia, from Bukit Lawang in Northern Sumatra to Komodo to Kalimantan, every day is a pleasure.

Hi Billyd,

I've done the holiday thing in Bali and they were the happiest people I have ever met. They had almost nothing, no running water, no electricity, no health cover, no money etc etc. We visited what I think was a typical property where they had three generations living in the same house but I guess they have a real co-operative community lifestyle ?.

A planned village with a patch of parkland is predictable. But 20 homes on 100 acre ( say 80 acres parkland) is trouble. Some will want koalas and long grass, some need mown lawns and weeded petunia beds, some trail-bike ski-jumps, some clear all trees for drones and cricket . Maybe for retirees , the koalas will win..

google "plastic sea bird" and follow the text:
"Because plastic pellets are magnets for toxic chemicals like DDT and PCBs, they effectively become poison pills. Japanese researchers found that concentrations of these chemicals were as much as a million times higher than in the water. Plastics themselves can leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals like biphenyl.
Many of the birds that come to International Bird Rescue's rehabilitation centers are impacted by fishing line and hooks, discarded monofilament line that has wrapped around their limbs and wings.

Plastic water bottles take 450 years to decompose;
Fishing lines and nets can take up to 600 years to decompose; and
Plastic bags or balloons in the ocean are dangerous (they can look like a jellyfish meal to a sea turtle)."

Hi nicknamenick,

Yes, 100 acres is far too big and as you say if it's for retirees a maintenance headache. 500 m2 blocks with a couple of acres of common land would be a lot more sensible. I was looking for something in between a hairy fairy ECO village and an over 50's Manufactured Home Estate.

Hi Paul

They really are a lovely people, as you say, and so accommodating of the beliefs of others. I have sat with a group of locals and you would never know their religions, but have been Muslim, Hindu and Christian, without an iota of superiority or animosity towards anyone's belief.

I have been promoting the following video, it is about people from villages on the North slopes of Mount Agung. It is a mostly dry arid land outside the wet season, with regular crop failures, this forces many people into begging in the tourist areas. This is the story of a Swiss organisation striving to do something about it.

https://vimeo.com/193176912

Paul C
My bro-in-law had a planning agency and used to say "how much money do you want to lose?" Standards are rising , sewage and power are off the planet and the developer of my house-block went broke. Maybe a tower block on the footpath for 20 trendies with designated 5 acres wild bush for each contestant?

nicknamenick,

I think the problem is too many stupid rules and regs created by petty burocrats who think they know everything and produce nothing. Perhaps that's a different subject :-)

Billyd,

Thanks for the link to the video, it makes you appreciate how lucky we are but also how poor the wealthy really are. I think you will understand what I mean.

Just guessing , how about setting up a 100 acre farm with 1 house. 19 other houses are farm improvements , rural accomodation. Roads and power-line rules may be more economic.

Unlikely to get away with that Nick. I had to bridge between my home, & my grany flat for my mother, when we built it, as I was not allowed 2 buildings with kitchens on any one title. That is on 20 acres. Would you believe I now have a carport over a grey water pump out tank, to meet these requirements.

I am actually surprised someone hasn't shot a few of the deliberately unhelpful council bureaucrats I had to deal with.

Most of these utopian communities just don't work. My mate Andy Martin tried for 3 decades to get one going on Middle Percy Island, off Mackay. He provided everything, but each attempt fell apart after a while. Google it for a sorrowful tail.

A lot of people have been happy living permanently in our version of US trailer parks. Unfortunately with the better sighted parks, the land value ultimately exceeds the earning capacity of a caravan park, & they are sold off. Still perhaps that's your answer. Build a caravan park for permanents, with the common garden/farm area, if you can get council approval for one. Without the common title, aspect, it should be easier.

NSW "To be allowed to build a granny flat as complying development it must be:

Established in conjunction with another dwelling (the principal dwelling),
On the same lot of land as the principal dwelling (and not an individual lot in a strata plan or community title scheme), and
May be within, attached to, or separate from the principal dwelling."
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Community title schemes may be the animal. Probably regulated to death.
Marijuana hippies near Glen Innes NSW had shacks among the weed, police came by helicopter without search warrant and got fined $1 mill. compo for assault although of course the grass merchants weren't motivated by wealth.

Hasbeen, I do not understand what you mean by a "common title" my guess is all caravan sites and Manufactured Home Estates have a single title/owner and they presumably work ok ?. I guess it's possible for the residents to set up a management company with shared equity and a single title ?. Sorry the legal stuff is new to me, are there any other options ?. I doubt that subdivisions would be allowed but I'm not sure about strata titles ?

Thanks

Would that be tenants in common?
"An asset owned by more than one person can be owned jointly (where it is real estate, this is referred to as a "joint tenancy") or in defined shares (in real estate, called a "tenancy in common").

A joint tenancy results in the law of survivorship applying as discussed above.

A tenancy in common has a different result. Tenants in common have defined shares and interests in the assets. In real estate, one tenant may have 30% of the land and the other tenant 70% of the land. The percentages are described on the Certificate of Title. If no percentage appears in that document, then the land is held as joint tenants.

Tenants in common are free to dispose of their share of the land as they see fit under their Will. The surviving tenant in common has no say over that, and will not automatically get that land under the law of survivorship if the other tenant in common dies.

A joint tenancy can be severed into a tenancy in common if the parties wish. "
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At death of a tenant in common the court can physically sub-divide the block by the shares owned. Maybe the Contract can specify that the land inherited must remain part of the community , don't know, and please send no cheques for this advice. Share-selling is not sub-division selling:

"A tenant in common is also free to sell his share or transfer it at will. An exception to this rule is that the co-tenant’s rights may be restricted by a separate agreement made by the co-tenants. Some agreements give the other co-tenants the right to buy out the co-tenant’s share before he or she sells it to someone else. Other agreements may include a clause that allows the other co-tenants to refuse a sale or to assess a buyer to ensure that they do not wind up owning property with someone of whom they do not approve."

NSW doesn't have this but there are similar court services. You may need a department office on site:
"Disputes can arise in many areas of life, whether it’s a disagreement with a neighbour over trees or fences; disputes between members of a club; workplace disagreements; or noise from animals, machinery or cars.

The Dispute Settlement Centre of Victoria (DSCV) is a free dispute resolution service funded by the Victorian Government. DSCV provides mediation services, as well as training and accrediting mediators to national standards.

DSCV can help you resolve common neighbourhood disputes involving fences, trees, animals, noise and drainage; disputes about difficult or anti-social behaviour; workplace disputes; and disputes within committees, clubs or Incorporated Associations."

Hi nicknamenick

Thanks for the detailed reply and sorry for the delay, I'm now on the other side of the world. It's about 5 deg C over here in pommie land.

From what I've read about Eco villages it sounds like most of them operate as "tenancy in common". They talk about buying shares in the overall property and the ability to sell your shares to a new tenant subject to the approval of the management committee. Most of the Eco Villages vet new tenants by requiring them to attend open days and community work days for some period of time before being allowed to purchase a home on the property.

The Manufactured Home Villages are owned and run as a commercial concern so the tenants purchase the home (or a share in the home) and pay a weekly rent. They do not own the land or a share of the overall property. The tenants rights are protected by state legislation.

This subject requires more research but I was thinking of something like a variation on the second option where the tenants buy the home and pay rent but also own equal shares in the management company.

Thanks

Prolly that becomes a local land council / mini shire council. It would no doubt have bearded Greens , gold-rimmed wealth investors and multi-cultural long hairs. What is your hair length?

Short hair but I do have a beard I hope that does not make me a Greenie :-)