Financial Requirements
The third and last requirement is, alas and unavoidably, to do with money.
You’re hopefully at the stage in life where you’ve realized that nothing is truly free, even if it seems to come from the government without requiring a direct offsetting payment on your part. Indeed, if you believe there is such a thing as a free lunch, and if you live your life in the hopes of securing such things, you’ll probably find that our views would diverge so much as to make us not well suited to become neighbors in the future.
There are three types of costs associated with the Code Green community. It is our overriding principle that not only must it make sense from a ‘quality of life’ and safety/survival point of view to belong to a Code Green community, it also must make sense economically too, and you’ll hopefully agree with us that not only do you have a better future integrated in with other like-minded folks, but the costs associated are more reasonable and better value too.
One more thing. People occasionally contact us, wanting to join, and they are high quality people we’d love to have come and be part of our community. The only problem is they don’t have the cash up front to become members. If that might be you, please don’t despair. After we’ve talked about the typical costs for people who can afford them, we then talk about non-typical ways to help you join us without needing to spend many tens of thousands of dollars up front to do so.
Maintenance/Monthly Ownership Costs
The easiest to understand costs are the ongoing maintenance costs to keep the community and its resources operating and ready to accept a sudden influx of residents, with sufficient fresh stores on hand, energy resources, and so on, to allow everyone to then comfortably live through a Level 2 situation and to possibly transition to an ongoing Level 3 situation.
This is a bit like a monthly condo association fee, and while final costs are not yet settled, the reality is they will probably be similar to monthly condo fees, ranging from a low of under $100 a month and extending up from that depending on the extent of your share of the community.
Think about the amazing value in that number. That’s probably less than you pay a month for your home insurance policy, and perhaps about what you pay each month per car that you own. And, for sure, it is massively less than you pay in healthcare insurance. So, for a number comparable to or less than the other insurance premiums you pay – for about the same price as your cable television and/or phone bill, you get the peace of mind and the insurance/assurance of the Code Green Retreat being available to take you in and care for you in an emergency.
Capital Purchase Costs
The next part is the cost of securing your part of the Code Green residential community. We have dwelling units of different types and styles and configurations, ranging from basic low-cost options (a bunk in a four bunk room) up to much more luxurious options (your own private condo or free-standing residence), with all options coming with a share of food, water, energy and other essentials for at least a year’s living.
Think of this as a bit like buying your own condo, with various choices from basement studios to rooftop penthouses.
Prices are not yet fixed, but probably range from a low of about $25,000 per person (for the basic bunk bed in a four bunk room), and going up from there depending on the options and lifestyle you wish to secure.
You can also choose whether you wish to help work the community land, or if you wish to have your own lot to develop and manage any way you choose. At least in its early stages, our community will be a curious blend of both capitalistic free enterprise and also socialistic community endeavor. We’re keen to transition, via an intermediary ‘controlled and planned economy’ to as free an economic base as possible, but while we’re very small, we do need to coordinate and control things like what we grow, otherwise we could end up with a ridiculous surplus of one crop that has a short storage life, but a total lack of other essential but less glamorous crops. We might have too many peaches and too few potatoes, in other words!
Anyway, if you want to have your own land, then that is certainly possible, although we’d ask that we agree on what you’d use it for, at least until our total community was viable and prospering. Land costs vary enormously – if you want steep hilly rocky land with no water, that’s going to be very inexpensive. But if you want prime level irrigated croplands close in to your dwelling, that’s going to be somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000 per acre.
If you choose to avail yourself of the Halfway House facility, an extra charge is associated with that, too, of course.
Investor Level Opportunities
The final part is a part that not everyone needs to directly participate in. If we had a sudden instant community of people, all buying in to the community simultaneously, we’d be in good shape, although we’d not have anything physically built on that wondrous first day.
Clearly this is not going to happen, so we need to get initial up-front funding to establish the development in the first place. We need to buy land – lots of land. We need to lay down some roading, run utilities (such as power, phone, cable. internet) to the site, create on-site utility services (water, sewage, renewable energy generation and storage), and carry out initial landscaping and site preparation work.
So we’re already into an outlay in the mid, possibly even high seven figures, and we’ve yet to erect any buildings or lay in supplies. Much of these costs need to be incurred prior to the first community member making their first payment.
We need investors to help us get started, and while we don’t wish to provide a ridiculously high rate of return, for fear of making the individual units no longer economically attractive to future community members, we will ensure that there is a fair rate of return to our investors who make the entire development possible.
The best analogy for this third part of the process is to think of it as being the developer who builds the condo block that is subsequently sold to its residents. We seek investments in any amount, on terms to be discussed and agreed upon.
Financing and Payment Terms
Once we get financing to initiate the development, we’re happy to roll that financing over and in turn finance your participation in the community.
You’ll be able to participate on a ‘rent to buy’ scheme that will see you making monthly payments just like you would for a car or house.
Non-Cash Participation
If you don’t have $25,000 or more in cash to buy in to the community, there may be another way that we can welcome you as valued members. If you have special skills, or even if you’re just willing to work hard to pay your way, we may be able to accept you on that basis too.
Because we do have an imperative need for the development costs to be recouped, this is a limited offer that will only be extended to a few people, and when we reach the maximum size our community can support, clearly priority will be given first to people able to fund their participation directly.
However, our point is simply this. Don’t let money stand between you and us. If you meet the other requirements of belong to our community, please do get in touch.
