About Asheville's Weaverville

My last two blogs were about a seller of 52 acreshere in the Asheville real estate trying to sustainably develop his property without having to sell to a buyer who wants to do a traditional development of singe family homes with 4 homes on an acre lot. Bill, the owner has created several different options of how the land might be used as a green development, but as I indicated my boss Janeanne and I did present him with one other option and that was to create an Eco-Village or Conservation Subdivision on his property. Bill has studied these type of development concepts over the years but is somewhat hesitant to create an Ecovillage plan because there are so many potential variations of this design that someone would like. His initial strategy is to let potential investors decide what they would like - the blank slate approach. I told him that investors would like to see what is being proposed, the vision of a community and then decide if that is place for them.

We would include the core concepts of an Ecovillage (from the Wikipedia definition) some of which are

• "Green" infrastructural capital;
• autonomous building or clustered housing, to minimize ecological footprint;
• renewable energy;
• permaculture;
• cohousing or other forms of supportive community.

The goal of most ecovillages is to be a sustainable habitat providing for most of its needs on site. Its organization also usually depends upon some instructional capital or moral codes - a minimal civics sometimes characterized as eco-anarchism:

• local purchasing so as to support the local economy;
• local food production and distribution;
• moral purchasing to avoid objectionable consumption;
• consensus decision-making for governance;

a choice to respect diversity

Some examples of current eco developments around the country include: Sawyer Hill, Berlin Ma , Ecovillage at Ithaca, NY, the Columbia EcoVillage, Portland ,Oregon. Feel free to post any other others that are your favorites.

Given all the above, Bill already is assuming that there would be a large area for organic gardens and an area for small farm animals ( i.e. chickens, goats, alpacas ,etc). as well as the ability for residents to have horses.

So there are a wide variety of EcoVillage designs and concepts floating around out there, what would your top 3 design features be for such a development were one to be built in your area?

I offered my top 3 choices to Bill that I would like to see in his Asheville Eco Village:

1. Having some or all of the green homes equipped with green roofs. A fair amount of gardening can take place on these and they also help offset the impervious footprint of roads and home foundations. Green roofs also cut heating and cooling costs.
2. Doing a major solar energy concept plan that could provide a sizable amount of energy for the entire community. There are many new and effective solar technologies on the market from solar roof shingles to the solar film technology. Being able to say that the community is getting a lot of energy off grid will also be a great selling feature. You can look at individual unit features and upgrades to solar collector panels for each knoll. I know this may add to costs, but it is something I think needs to be looked at now in this stage of your thinking.
3. Installing or having available as an upgrade a grey water system to recycle water used in the house for irrigation purposes. (there are other variations as well). I have a client who is installing the first such system in his Asheville home and the inspectors have approved it, although admitting they know little about it. The plumber putting it in is training the permitting inspectors on it. With water issues being what they are with the drought, this will be seen as a really important green feature.

So what three great features would you put in such a development? I will pass everything on to Bill for his consideration. In the meantime here are the particulars and a update on Bills 52 acres:

The first part of this blog began with my finding some very beautiful property in the Asheville, North Carolina real estate market for clients who are looking to build a green, dog friendly community. The owner, Bill, very much wants a conservation subdivision on it, but has serious cash flow problems and is facing having to sell to traditional developers who will build homes on quarter acre lots. To make matters worse, Bill and his wife, their children and families all live on property adjoining the land that is for sale, so their view-shed and neighborhood will be directly affected by any development that occurs on the land.

So Bill is effecting stalling the potential traditional developer while he and I start to think of other potential ways the land could be used. One scenario has his 52 acres up listed at 3 million dollars. Dividing the land into 3 estate size lots utilizing the three gentle knolls on the property while keeping about 17 acres in green space is another scenario Bill starts to consider. A third possibility arises with dividing the property into 8 lots, with 18 acres of green space and making it an exclusive green equestrian community. Here is the link to Horse Haven. What makes this attractive as a horse community is an adjacent 75 acres of pasture land with a 12 stall horse barn that will be part of the developments facilities. Miles of riding trails on and off the property help as well.

So Bill is out there trying his best to get at least one buyer to come and fall in love with the land, and buy any one of a number of different lots ranging from 2 to 29 acres to help him stave off selling all 52 acres and having the land traditionally developed ( I am being kind in my description here). Janeanne, owner of EcoSteward Realty (whose computer motherboard has crashed, yikes!) had a potential buyer out this weekend with two more slated to come over the next few weeks. It is now a race against time.

But while Bill waits for a buyer to appear, Janeanne and I put yet another idea in his mind about how the land may be best developed ....

It all started out innocently enough. I had some clients that were looking to build a green conservation development that would also be very dog friendly. These buyers were interested in obtaining a piece of property of at least 20+ acres fairly close to downtown Asheville owned by a seller willing to do some owner financing.

I found a very nice 29+ acres in the town of Weaverville located only 15 minutes from downtown that bordered an existing 52 acre, 50 lot green subdivision, meaning all homes there would be built to Healthy Built Home standards( not crazy about the density of this subdivision, but more on that later). Asking is price 1.9 million. The land is rolling with two distinct knolls that have great views to the east, south, and west. In addition, the seller also owned the subdivision next door and also indicated that he was open to doing some financing. So far so good.

I went out to preview the property and met the owner, Bill, who is also a Realtor/builder/developer. Bill has already built two luxury green model homes on the property, with one having sold for about 900K . The other is listed for 1.5 million with way too many green features to list. It has high end custom craftsmanship evident in every room and is a wonderful house to walk through. Things are looking even better now since my clients will be next to a green subdivision with a seller living next door who is all about sustainable development.

But then I start to get a lot more information. Bill is apparently experiencing some severe cash flow problems due to the lots in the existing subdivision not selling. And then comes the cruncher, he has a firm offer from an out of town investor for 52 acres ( Bill has another adjoining 23 acre parcel up for sale as well, but not listed) who wants to put a minimum of 4 lots per acre on this property. The kicker, though, is that the Bill also owns 65 adjacent acres(up the side of a mountain) to the entire 52 acres where his home is located, along with the homes of his 3 children and their families. He will be looking out over this densely developed subdivision should he decide to sell to out of town investor. Bill and the other agent representing the investor have already agreed on a price and are negotiating the terms of the offer. Bill tells me that he listed the 29 acres in the hopes that some sustainable development buyers might magically appear and bail him out of the ecological dilemma he is facing. He is ideally looking for someone to build a mountain conservation community or similar eco-development. Bill believes that the Asheville real estate market is prime for this type of green development. I tell him I understand his problem and as I am leaving ask him if he ever considered selling a 5-10 acre piece of the property. I happen to have several clients looking for something like this willing to pay anywhere from 400-500K for the right parcel. Bill indicates he had not thought of that, but will percolate on the concept. So we part ways.

I later convey all of Bill's problems to my buyers who understand the issues but as fortune would have it are in the process of moving to Asheville to a home they have just purchased with my assistance. They meet with Bill who indicates that he needs 500K down and he will carry the rest of the balance at 12% interest for 12-18 months. He stipulates that the deal does need to be done ASAP. Normally these are terms that my buyers would find reasonable, but due to their moving find themselves not in a position to do anything until late March at the earliest. Bill indicates that he does not know if he can wait that long. He likes my clients a lot though, and their plans for the land. So Bill starts to implement plans to try and stall the other buyer, who seems very eager to buy the property.

To Be Continued ...