This doesn't really fit in the category of Ohio projects, but it's a very interesting story on how residential development and farming are apparently merging.

 

For Sale: Condo

With Chicken Coop

 

By Sara Schaefer Munoz

From The Wall Street Journal Online

 

Forget the golf-course community or the manicured subdivision. A number of developers are now offering homes on working farms. Catering to Americans' desire to live "green," developers around the country are creating communities on or adjoining farms, pitching views of sorghum fields, grazing livestock, and local -- very local -- food, such as eggs residents collect from the property's henhouse. The communities, however, aren't necessarily in the boondocks. Some are in suburbs or near cities.

 

For more information, click below link.

 

Email your comments to [email protected].

 

http://www.realestatejournal.com/buysell/markettrends/20070518-munoz.html?refresh=on

Thanks for posting.

 

Some things like this have been done before, but in the past it was more like several families buying farmland and building houses while sharing the farmland.  These projects are led by developers and not homeowners.

Interesting, but no thanks!

Hey... I'd jump at the opportunity if if meant cutting a grocery bill that's going to be driven higher by fuel costs.

^but wouldn't the grocery bill savings be eliminated by the fact you live in suburbs/exurbs and now have to drive everywhere.

Not if you're growing at least some of your own food and reducing the need to drive to the super-Kroger.  And if these condo-far developers have any smarts, they'll be incorporating some of the services people need (grocery stores, dry cleaners, barbershops, etc) into cluster development nearby.

 

Actually, I've seen some urban sites, inclduing brownfields, that could be adapted for a development like that described in the article.

growing crops for human consumption in a brownfield seems like a really bad idea, but then again I know nothing of farming.

Not if its cleaned up properly. 

sure, but how do you do that in a cost effective manner?  I know certain plants, sunflowers come to mind, can leech chemicals out of the soil.  Is that enough? 

 

For flowers and shrubs that could be sold at farmers markets it seems like a good idea. The soil wouldn't have to be as clean and they generally get a pretty good price.

The biggest challenge is digging out any contaminated soils, which isn't as difficult if you were dealing with a Superfund Site like Love Canal in Buffalo.  Then it's just a matter of putting in proper drainage and backfilling the land with clean fill and topsoil.  I'm simplifying of course, but you get the idea.

 

And, as you pointed out, plants like sunflowers (which are valued for their oil) can also clean up any remaining pollutants.  Even a farm for landscaping plants or trees would be feasible.  If monitored right, regular food crops could be grown on raised mounds of fresh earth, I would think.