One Tree Orchard Sustainable Community

“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.”
- Bill Vaughn

If I were to set up a mandate for myself at this stage it would be a list of do’s and don’ts. It would probably look something like this:

I don’t want to be a part of a system that helps people become more disconnected from their natural environment.

I don’t want to push wild animals into smaller and smaller living areas.

I don’t want to build anything that is disposable.

I don’t want to build with poisonous materials.

I don’t want to transport materials that can be sourced locally.

I DO want to build houses that are extremely energy efficient.

I DO want to foster a greater sense of community.

I DO want to make available the opportunity for shared agriculture space.

I DO want to prove that this new model of community design is both profitable and beneficial.

…

Not a bad list of criteria to live up to. As you can see I’ve turned a ’simple’ subdivision plan into an epic. The old fashioned way is simply not cool anymore. I hate seeing subdivisions that don’t even have a playground. This is the bare minimum. On the most selfish creep would build a place for people to live and not think about the needs of children to socialise.

So to get to the point at hand, what is next? On June 19th Tegan Wong-Daugherty of Falls Brook Centre will be leading a workshop on sustainable community design with Daniel Savard (head planner from the Department of Environment.) This workshop will be held at Renaissance College in Fredericton and will focus specifically on my little plan but will have practical aspects that would apply to any development. I’m so excited about this workshop. I can’t speak highly enough about the work that they are doing at Falls Brook Centre! If you haven’t been. It’s a must! Anyone who is interested in being a part of the workshop, it’s free, should contact Tegan to register. It is free and promises to be very exciting!

“Makes Ben Hur look like an Epic!”
-tag line from ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’

I have a habit of turning small jobs into large jobs. In the case of deciding how to proceed with the subdivision of the One Tree Orchard I think I can safely say I have turned a huge job into an enormity. Early on I thought this would be a very straight forward process. Have some surveyors draw some pictures. Get a couple of okays from this person and that. Dig up some trees. Throw in a couple of roads. Build some houses. Sell em up eight at a time. Done.

Ha ha ha ha ha! Ya right. The illusion that this would be bureaucratically simple disappeared quickly. The illusions I was under concerning the design faded more slowly. In my travels I have seen a good many subdivisions go up. Some good, some bad. I have lived in some really nice looking houses out west that I would consider ‘disposable’. These places where made as cheaply as possible with little thought into what might help these homes last even a lifetime. Equally odd is the way that the land is laid out. All trees are typically cleared, land flattened and after the home is built a couple of non native trees are planted. These trees are more prone to disease and ill health since they are not suitable to the climate. The cleared land is of course a huge yard now to mow. (I just finished mowing my lawn for the first time this year. I can’t figure out why we mow our lawns, or at least why we have such huge lawn area. Can anyone tell me?)

“I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.”
- Henry David Thoreau

It’s quite evident from my point of view that the first thing necessary to prepare this area for any kind of respectable habitation is a good clean-up. The above photo is of the first set of appliances I removed (some friendly folks had left these in the ditch on our private road which leads to the Saint John River.) The road is a very useful one to visitors as it allows boat access to the river. We had left this road open for the sake of those who used it properly. Most people, I’m quite sure, used it respectfully and didn’t leave anything behind. Unfortunately, it’s the small number of folks who have used this road disrespectfully which has lead to this accumulation of crap. In the end 15 abandoned appliances (4 washers, 4 stoves, 2 fridges, 2 freezers, and 3 hot water tanks) and truck loads of other household rubbish were removed from the forest of our property. I have such a hard time understanding the mind that would choose to dump their trash in someone else’s yard rather than dispose of it properly.

As I was removing this rubbish from the woods alone, I decided that putting it all square in the middle of the private road was a reasonable thing to do. Obviously, the road is off limits until clean up is done, right? Actually it wasn’t as obvious as I had thought. I awoke the next day to someone driving a jeep down the road (my bedroom window overlooks this road). I rushed down and found him throwing the garbage back into the woods. I ran up to him while buttoning my shirt an yelled out to the guy to politely stop what he was doing (You may insert any likely inflammatory remark here. It probably was said. However, this is a family blog…) What is interesting is that this man thought that someone had just come down here and dumped garbage into the middle of my road (‘Some people are so ignorant!’ he says). His idea of improving this situation was to remove the garbage from the sight of people. Who cares whats in the woods? Out of sight out of mind. I learned a lot from this interaction. In his mind, he was completely justified in his action. In fact he was righteously indignant about how selfish and stupid ‘other people’ were. He was, from his point of view, doing me a favour. I politely asked him to leave until the clean-up was done.

I realised from this meeting that we often decry the habits of others that are sometimes closest to our own.

Here are some more lovely pictures of garbage…

This is a complete truck load of home demolition debris. It would have cost someone five dollars or there abouts to drop this off at the dump.

It’s possible that recycling hadn’t been introduced at the stage when 300 cans were left here. For whatever that’s worth…

Free washer to a good home

If this is your car please come pick it up.

“Life is a field of unlimited possiblilites.”
- Deepak Chopra

A deed dating back to 1955 lists my great grandfather Frank Atwood Good as the owner of a property on the outskirts of Fredericton New Brunswick. This deed states that F.A. Good’s intent was to subdivide the land into smaller residential lots. He had been running a small family business of tourist cabins surrounding the family house. He was a member of the New Brunswick Apple Growers Association and was very experienced at grafting trees. Frank A. Good never managed to subdivide this land and until recently neither has my father or grandfather. In February of this year, my parents bought the adjacent land of the late Audrey Good. Because these to two woodlots were too narrow neither has been developed. However, the two pieces together… thats another story.

The name we have chosen for this intentional community ‘One Tree Orchard’ was originally a creation of the late Frank Atwood Good (not to be mistaken with my father Frank Alexander Good). He had grafted one apple tree with every kind of apple that is grown in New Brunswick as a tribute to our provinces apple growing industry. There were over seventy different ’scion’ (grafted members) on this one tree. (I have postcards to prove it.) It became quite an attraction too. He was written up in Popular Science magazine and Ripley’s Believe it or Not. The tree stood prominently within the grounds of the tourist cabin business for many years. I can just imagine seeing a tree blossom year after year with seventy different kinds of apples on it. I wish it were still around today.

As a result of old Frank A. Good’s hobby, I’m sure you’ve already guessed it, my family is now world famous! I was personally drawn to ‘The One Tree Orchard’ for the name of our community for two reasons. Foremost, it gives historical relevance to the project. I love the story of that old tree and dedication that he had to maintaining a monument to such a wonderful industry. Secondly, it is a great symbol for the richness that can come from small efficient systems of all kinds. I have been reading a lot about permaculture in preparation for the design stage of this project. Permaculture, which is short for permanent agriculture, is, simply put, the opposite of monoculture. Monoculture is the model most commonly used in large agricultural systems. A monoculture is an agricultural system in which one crop is grown exclusively on one piece of ground and artificial fertilisers and chemical pest control are used to protect and expedite the isolated crop. Permaculture takes the approach that by growing many different crops and arranging them in mutually beneficial groups, pests can be managed effectively without the use of harmful chemicals. As I have researched this project I have learned so much about myself and my values. I hope to build a neighbourhood which will foster a community that looks to it’s own resources rather than outsourcing the basic staples of life. Our societies current model is based on outsourcing absolutely everything (even things that are available locally.) If you need food, buy it from a grocery store or better yet a restaurant. If you feel lonely, go to a club and meet someone. If you’re sad, take a drug. If you’re bored, turn on the TV. If you feel sick, don’t ask whether there’s something inherently wrong with this system, take another drug. Are your drugs making you feel sick? Take another drug. If you feel insecure, have some surgery. etc. etc. It’s a system that thrives upon looking for a symptom rather than a cause. And worse than that it is a system that promotes new symptoms.

That system doesn’t interest me anymore. I want to start thinking of community development, food production and healthy lifestyle as needs that can be met locally with efficient systems that foster individual independence as well as healthy community interdependence. The name ‘One Tree Orchard’ was chosen as a symbol of the bounty that can be found in ones own community.

“The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world”

Lao Tzu

When I first took this project on I was still thinking of myself as an outsider to this community. I had only been living in IslandView (pop. 300ish) for about four months. I knew I was going to do something out of the ordinary but I was, I’ll admit, thinking that the process would go very quickly. In fact I wanted to be breaking ground this summer. Three stages of development and you’re out of here.

Thank god, I managed to see where that process would have ended. I now see that there is a huge responsibility to tread softly when considering something as potentially devastating as completely altering the natural environment. This process will be very long and slow. I’m very happy about this since it now feels manageable. I had been worrying for a while that the control over this endeavour was slipping out of my family’s hands and into the black hole called ‘The Way Things Are Done Here’. There are many things that are fantastic about the way we do things in New Brunswick. (We aren’t arrogant people. We don’t like to tell others how to live their lives. We eat plants that are poisonous for all but two weeks of their lives. We make really good beer, we have the worlds largest axe. etc…) Unfortunately, skyrocketing energy costs and the bombardment of new terrifying environmental concerns make the argument for the housing market status quo, in my view, unconscionable. There are far too many choices (some simple, some very complex) that will allow us to reduce our impact on our natural world. Passivity is the most dangerous personal attribute of our age. I am very lucky to have the choices that I have in life. (That’s the understatement of the decade.) I believe that the only way to influence others in a positive way is to show by example. In my experience, trying to convince someone to use a travel mug instead of a paper double cup by telling them how much harm they’re doing has little to negative effect. It takes a great deal of effort to not push this issue because I feel so much better about myself when I’ve spoken my peace. Did it accomplish anything? Not so sure. Has it put that person on the defensive? More likely.

I have a unique opportunity here to show the larger community that sustainable design IS a part of the Greater Fredericton value system. And furthermore that sustainable design is more profitable to the land owner than the current clear it, dig it, build it, and run method. Now all I’ve got to do is make it happen…

“Let’s start at the very beginning: A very good place to start”

Oscar Hammerstein

In February 2008 I began the process or researching and developing a community subdivision design for a large piece of family land In rural New Brunswick. Since then I think it’s safe to say I’ve been though a wonderful personal transformation. To be sure, I’ve always been very vocal of my disdain for resource plunder and grandeur for the sake of status. But until now, I’ve never really had my idealism and world view put to public scrutiny. I realise now how difficult it must be for old school builders and community designers to change their paradigms. We don’t even really use the metric system in New Brunswick yet. I know from the onset that my ‘intentional community’ expedition will be steep. I hope that my sense of how a community should be built will stand up both socially and financially. Only time will tell I suppose. Mainly, I realise that I can’t possibly continue to bitch about the choices of others in this field if I can’t do any better.
This journey, despite it being still in its early days, has been an enormously formative experience for me. I can’t even express the gratitude that I feel to my parents for giving me the opportunity to manage this exciting process. I’ve never been interested in real estate or other speculative profit games. In fact I might be so bold as to say that even the concept of land ownership in it’s current form is a little bit absurd to me. Life has truly dropped this amazing opportunity at my feet.

This experience has been, primarily, a journey of self discovery. Don’t get me wrong, there has been a huge amount of book learning ,research and networking, advice seeking and pandering for favours, etc. But the real magic has been the relationships that have been born out of this dream. People from many different walks of life have stepped up to offer help and support in a variety of ways. To some the idea of designing a ’subdivision’ is boring as hell. In theory this is the case for me. Like I said I have never been interested in being taking part in the plunder of natural resources that tends to take the name ‘Land Management’. Since my father took ill, my parents had two options: Sell this land or develop it. I asked to take this project on because I believe that I will do a better job of ‘developing’ it than anyone else. Again, only time will tell.