MendoVito: Salvation Or Fantasy?

Hi Claude,
If you say water is never going to be used by this community, let’s move on to another topic—why a separate entity? why not a out-growth of an existing one? such as Talmage? or Hopland? or Calpella? Ultimately, no matter how ‘soft’ this development is on the earth, it does mean paving over land that is open space now. It does ‘smell’ like a typical suburban enclave suitable for commuters or weekend escapes. Is there any example where people are not, guaranteed not, using cars to commute to work? How were the data quantified? How can they be verified?
Pinky

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Hi Pinky,

The last thing I am interested in doing is to provide more hollow homes for the comfortable class or more dormitory bedroom housing for commuters. The island where I live has 15% hollow homes (2nd homes used on weekends or high season and left empty the rest of the time). When they do arrive (by boat since we have no bridges), they bring their shopping with them, and they create a boom-bust economy that wreaks havoc on the local businesses. In our valley, we used to have the annual tinny race (tinnies are 8-10 foot long metal rowing boats, and the races were for fun, with the prize being a frying pan kept until the next year). We discontinued it when so many homes were sold, converted to hollow homes that gutted the community. The local folk got gentrified out, and while it is quieter in the valley (except when the helicopters fly in), it’s sad.

As for a place with car-free commuters, I live in one. A thousand people commute to town on the ferry because we have no bridge, but it is still not the answer, because it hollows out our community during the day. In Italy you will find the best examples in the smaller towns that still have artisans, still make clothes, shoes, and see a lot of people on bikes. Old Europe worked exclusively this way until the American model seeped in, but now they are going back to the older ways.

However, as we look to the future, it is the shift in technology that will be the big change agent. When I was on Maple Avenue in Ukiah, Mendo people would call me at (707) 320-1185. They are still calling me at that number, not knowing that it was to a home-phone device plugged into the internet in my house there, and now is plugged in 6,500 miles away in my home on Waiheke Island. This shift means that people no longer need to drive to offices. In fact, if you go into a modern office, you will see most people work on a computer, phone or equivalent device that no longer needs to be there. Increasingly machines work by wire or wireless. The younger generations are far less interested in cars, because theirs is a virtual world. Detroit is worried because cars hold no passion for them. The implications of this shift are profound – and they can either further destroy communities or they can rebuild them.

To answer some of your specifics.

Policies will be put in place at the onset and teeth given to those policies that will be enforceable. In addition, we expect that peer pressure will provide non-official protection as well. In a community established to eschew commuters and hollow-home buyers, people who try will feel peer pressure from the majority, especially since hollow homes adversely impact their economy and social structure. During the establishment phase, people will be asked about their intents and the only hollow-home buyers to get in will be those who lie.

However, beyond these soft measures, MendoVito as a Civitas Corporation will have powers to regulate and if necessary enforce its policies. It all depends on how severe the problem. Remember that all cars will be parked in the motorpool with a single in-out road, like in an airport rental garage. It won’t take much for the person at the gate to work out who is leaving and arriving back on schedule every day. MendoVito will own the land, so it can regulate it. It can set a fixed number of commuter permits, a small number that will neither burden the roads or be sufficient to have an adverse impact on the economy or social structure. It is expected those permits will be for nearby farm workers, workers in Hopland and perhaps some public service employees in Ukiah who cannot afford housing in Ukiah.

Commute without a permit and the Civitas Corporation brings charges against you in the Tribunal that has a range of powers, the most extreme of which is to boot you out and require your home be sold or leased.

In regard to hollow homes, a similar system is planned. Begin by understanding how it is proposed to handle rentals. In our research, the biggest problem in rentals is the landlord from hell or the tenant from hell. These are best solved by the Civitas Corporation handling all arms-length rental units. Their mission is to keep the units occupied so the local economy keeps turning dollars – vacant units means a smaller, less effective economy, as well as a less interactive society. Again, policies are put in place.

Commuters mean the building is empty during the day, and often that the commuter shops somewhere else. That one is already discussed above. Hollow homes would be defined as a certain number of consistent vacant days, and most likely the annoyed neighbors will alert the Civitas Corporation to check it out. However, that is adversarial, that’s the stick. The carrot is to build travelers’ inns with suites that people can buy for occasional occupancy. They can be as homey and luxurious as the owner wants, and they get priority on use, so if they say they will use it for a weekend, it’s theirs. But when they are not there, it becomes visitor accommodations.

Visitors will come to MendoVito both because of the social and cultural enrichment (5% creative class, slow food, etc) but also because it is likely to be a mecca of sustainable technology. If MendoVito builds a showcase of solar, water management, zero waste, car-free and all the other aspects, that will attract the green industries that not only will have provided the technology, but then have a living example for the world to see – visitors will come to see it in action. The benefit of visitors over tourists is that visitors come year-round, for a specific purpose and generally they bring as much energy as they take. They don’t expect to pay to be entertained, and they don’t exhaust their hosts. They also tend to be better for the local economy as they smooth out the spending, not the boom and bust of tourist spending.

When we talk about a framework, it is this kind of weaving… combining the interest of the part-time person who otherwise would buy a hollow home, with the interest of visitors who now will use that hollow home so it rarely is hollow (vacant). Smart design makes it more attractive. Design sliding, locking walls, behind which are the personal effects of the owner. An owner can keep their clothes there or even a wall with valuable works of art that the visitor never sees. None of these are new ideas, all we have done is collect them and weave them in. Also, none are cast in concrete. As a framework, not a plan, when the time comes for professionals to make it happen, they will work out the bugs.

The other thing to keep in mind with part time residents and visitors is how different the balance of public and private space will be in contrast to conventional America. The design of the village plazas, that includes home-style foods (not overly rich restaurant food) served in cafes collectively-owned by each village and leased to proprietors (who must serve healthy, flavorful and affordable foods or the villagers may not renew the lease) generates a more public way of living. People will not build home movie theaters, home gymnasiums, home bars and all the other private entertainment stuff that bloats the modern American home. This means that part time people, be they residents or visitors, will spend more time in public space because it is more engaging than sitting at home. Their private space will be when they need privacy. The village plazas, with the conviviality of their long-table travelers’ inns and taverns, and the cultural enrichment sponsored by the artist guild halls will compete with Netflix and cable TV, and for most be far more engaging. This too should have an impact on how physical space is designed and used.

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You asked about paving over land that is open space. True – no way to avoid it. The land that is currently 8 feet of tractor-row bare-earth and 2 feet of grape row will become human-scaled streets and attached, multi-floor buildings with rooftop greenhouses. In answer to this, let me first introduce a different mode of thinking than how the mainstream in America thinks.

I live in New Zealand, and though a series of completely unplanned and unexpected events having to do with an ancient castle in Slovenia and a conference hosted by Miha Pogacnik, a violinist and cultural ambassador, over the subsequent decade, I and my family found ourselves brought into deep recesses of the traditional indigenous culture of New Zealand, the Maori. The word Maori means “normal”, and what we learned is that what passes for normal in western society today is anything but. Western society is like a hormone-addled teenager, wreaking havoc because of its immaturity. In some places, such as Mendocino County, there is more maturity, but in general as a social order, we engage in toxic, self-destructive behavior made worse by the power of our technology.

The Maori (elders, not all of them) are more mature, with a longer cultural memory, as are most other indigenous peoples. In planning, they speak about the responsibility to plan for seven generations, about 175 years, presuming one generation is about 25 years. In New Zealand, the Maori are mainstream; indeed our current Governor General, Jerry Mateparae, the titular head of state and representative of the Crown is Maori. Their influence is embedded in our laws, such as the Resource Management Act, that include Maori principles such as “sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations; and safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil, and ecosystems”.

So it is within this context that the MendoVito land use is considered.

It may be helpful first to read “Paving Paradise: A New Perspective on California Farmland Conversion” by the American Farmland Trust (AFT) (http://www.farmland.org/programs/states/CA/documents/PavingParadise_AmericanFarmlandTrust_Nov07.pdf) Let me quote from it:

“The efficiency of development is another key issue – perhaps the most important, given that city­ centered growth in California will almost inevitably convert high quality farmland, placing a premium on not wasting it. This report measures the efficiency of development with the ratio of the number of people in an urbanized area to the number of acres of land occupied by al of the urban uses that serve them, from residences to shopping and schools, workplaces and roads; in short the entire urban “footprint.” The result is reported as “people per urban acre” or “PPA.”

Ukiah has a PPA of 5.32. San Francisco is 27. Manhattan is 108. The seemingly compact and walkable town of Mendocino is low at 0.19 because many of its residents live further out. Sea Ranch is even lower at 0.13 PPA. In the AFT report, they say that the California average land coverage (excluding ranchettes and LA) the PPA in 2004 was 7.2 people per urbanized acre.

If we think in terms of seven generations, it is important to think about people per acre, and to find the right balance between sprawl and packing people in so we cease to enjoy what it is to be human. When I was born, about 2.5 generations ago, the US had 150 million people, and California had 10 million. Today, the US has 316 million and California is inching up toward 40 million. Earlier this year, the state predict California will hit 50 million by 2049 (about 1.4 generations from now).

So in planning for seven generations, we looked at PPA and asked “what is the optimal size?”

In A Pattern Language Christopher Alexander writes in pattern #21 Four-story limit “There is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make people crazy. In any urban area, no matter how dense, keep the majority of buildings four-stories high or less. It is possible that certain buildings should exceed this limit, but they should never be buildings for human habitation.” This is why we propose that MendoVito have three story (plus the rooftop greenhouse) attached buildings in the villages, and four story in the town center.

Density increases when cars are eliminated from the urban core. The width of roads is no longer determined by sidewalks, parked cars and two lanes of driving, but ensuring enough sunlight gets to the street. Pedestrians need less street width than sunlight. The rule of thumb is 1:1, meaning in a 10-acre village, 5 acres is open and 5 acres are for buildings.

In MendoVito the density will also be determined by the rainwater harvesting and storage. As such, the roof area to population ratio will result in bigger rooms since too great a PPA could result in insufficient water in a worst-case drought that lasted multiple years.

The projected PPA of MendoVito is 46 people per acre. This will make it the highest density in Mendocino County, but still human-scaled. It is higher than San Francisco because it won’t have four to six lane streets. Our sense is that this is the right number for future generations. Some of this is based on ancient human patterns and this is why we propose a town made of villages, rather than a single town.

Numerous studies looking far back show that people get along with each other best in communities of 250 to 750 people, say an average of 500. They naturally look after each other, and they sort out how to get along. They cooperate as well as compete. They tend to take care of their elders, look after all the children, not just their own. They tend to be safe, rarely needing police to keep the peace. Of course, in villages of that size, they can drive each other nuts if gossip becomes a contact sport. They also lack an economic critical mass necessary to become self supporting. For that, you need a larger number, you need a town. The town tends to naturally control gossip because there is enough to do that people engage in life. Economically, it supports both wealth creation and sufficient internal spending that money keeps turning. The obvious answer was to build a town made of villages, side-by-side, but each with its own plaza, its own local facilities and its own identity.

In designing it, it becomes important that it has built in anti-gentrification policies so it does not become another Healdsburg that was saved from oblivion by the monied class moving in and driving the price of everything through the roof. The goal is to build complete communities, not elite ones, yet a place with this level of attractiveness runs the risk of gentrification unless that is planned for from the onset. To do that, it must have jobs for people who do not have the education or the interest to command, or demand and get, high pay, and to have permanently affordable housing commensurate with their earning power. Someone needs to farm the rooftop gardens, teach the children, care for the infirm, yet we live in a society that pays these people less. Forget trying to change the fundamental monetized structure of the inequities of the national economy. That’s a prescription for failure, as failed 20th century experiments show us. We need to approach it from a different direction. The current method is to create affordable housing zones, but this comes with a stigma, sort of an other-side-of-the-tracks feel that creates a cultural divide.

The answer we found was the parallel housing market. Just as doctors must have certain qualifications to practice medicine, what if we established parallel housing markets based on certain qualifications – such as affordable housing if you work in blue collar industrial zone jobs? This is explained in some depth on the web site and in the books, so I won’t repeat the details here, and it is not perfect, but it is a way to ensure a complete community, not an elite one.

Thus, while it is true that 235 acres of land will be paved over for higher density of people per acre, it is our sense that if we are planning for seven generations, the 20th century model of much lower densities is obsolete and toxic, and the solutions proposed by present day planners, such as transit-oriented communities where we replace car commuters with train commuters – are not much better. If they were, we would not be here proposing MendoVito.

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Finally, you asked why instead of McDowell Valley, the proposal would not be to select an existing community like Hopland, Talmage or Calpella. There are many answers, and I am aware I have already written 2,500 words this morning answering your much shorter questions. So let me try to be briefer.

We considered Hopland and Talmage. Calpella is totally unsuited, as it is hemmed in by 101, 20 and the flood zone – too small, and a completely car-based home range where the people already there would feel invaded.

Hopland would have potential to the east, except the available land is a flood plain. You have to get far into Sanel Valley to find enough land above the flood zone… which was considered, but it is in multiple ownership and had less water storage. Reducing the variables such as finding a willing single owner makes a difference.

Talmage had some potential, but it had location and floodplain issues, as well as concerns about cross-boundary conflicts both with farms (spray drift) and the long-term presence of the City of 10,000 Buddhas that may have its own growth plans. Also Talmage proper does not have a kernel to define it, but instead is a series buildings alongside a busy road.

Your idea about building around an existing community as a kernel is a good one, and when we were invited to Mallorca in Spain, the best candidate sites were ancient clustered towns owned by extended families where the young have left and the need to find an alternative to the tourism industry was understood by the remaining elders. Mallorca is a fertile place that now imports 90% of its food, yet its half-abandoned old villages and towns were designed before cars and are compatible with VillageTown design. However, no such suitable kernels were found in Mendocino County.

As for the “‘smell’ like a typical suburban enclave”, I hope these detailed answers have dispelled that odor. Suburbs were designed after WW-II to sell cars, petroleum and chemicals. The war was won on gasoline, and the swords-into-plowshares was a gasoline-powered war machine kept going by paving potato fields into suburbs. More post-war millionaires were made subdividing American land than any other way. It was a glorious riot of roads, lawns and split-level ranchers that spread across America. Now the cheap oil is gone, and America is fracking to squeeze out what’s left underground. A more mature species would look at us and shake their heads in sadness.

But while we still have the energy to build a bridge to the future, the time to make changes is now, not when the next gas crisis hits. The MendoVito proposal is very simple… move destinations not people. Don’t build a transit-oriented community, build a community-oriented community.

Doing it on a single-owner, greenfield farm in an isolated (but near 101) valley with few inhabitants and biodynamic vineyards nearby helps reduce the number of variables to a manageable level. Sure, someone can try to retrofit Ukiah, but getting 6,500 building owners to agree, plus asking CalTrans and the city to cooperate would easily take a decade and tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars with a low likelihood of success… the phrase herding cats comes to mind.

In conclusion, Pinky, my apologies for writing so many words in reply, but I suppose the teacher in me wants to transmit everything I know so that others get the big picture as well. Writing succinctly is a great art, regrettably not mastered by me.

Hopefully, when the dust settles, Andrew and I will be able to take these answers and distill them into the Q&A section of mendovito.com. And, if there is anyone out there with more talent in wordsmithing, please join us. This is an open-source model.

Thanks
Claude