Land Acquisition processes.

One of the major issues facing those wanting to create 'eco-villages' and resilient community design would be land acquisition.  Acquiring land for these projects boils down to either the land being donated in some way, or the money put forth to buy the land.   One way that GEC is looking into to create a 'viral' process of land acquisition would be the idea of creating a limited equity Coop model under a LLC and selling 'shares' for a land purchase fund. The shares represent the occupants and the number of shares will equal the number of units or occupancy sites on the land.  While we know that land purchasing costs generally run about 20% of the total cost of development, this system would allow the members to pool money together and depending on the total cost of the land, quite possibly have the land costs paid outright for a lot less then what a buy would pay for buying an individual plot of land equal to what they normally could afford.  Further more we propose putting that land under a trust  through it could be possible to keep it under the Coop model/LLC.