Field of Dreams: Organic Gardens Planted To Lure Homebuyers

nytimes.com:

From Vermont to central California, developers are creating subdivisions around organic farms to attract buyers. If you plant it, these developers believe, they will buy.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[growbrooklyn]

Farms, having been purchased and destroyed by developers, are being repackaged and marketed as lifestyle-enhancement products. This not only sustains a value-orientation to dependent, instant-gratification consumerism (get all the “American Dreamness” of a gated community WITH one more “thing” – an organic farm!), it further commercializes the concepts and practices of “organic,” “environmentally-friendly,” and “progressive.”

Read the entire Growing Green in Brooklyn response to this NY Times article here:

http://growbrooklyn.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/farm-it-and-they-will-come/

[JScott]

Not really nothing new, originally that was the thinking behind the development of the San Fernando Valley but the pressures of speculation and subdivision were just too great.

There is a small subdivision in Hacienda Heights tho of a planned unit development built in the 1970's called 'The Avocado Grove' the homes are in a working avocado grove and some revenue is raised with the harvesting and selling of the avocados.

[SierraClubGreenHome2]

Here's more proof that demand for greener options is becoming more wide spread. I really doubt any home builder would have even considered something like this even a few years ago. Our sierraclubgreenhome.com office is located in Las Vegas, a place where you really have to look hard to find the eco-friendly, but even here it's taking hold. A neighborhood of green-built custom homes with price tags north of $1 million is bucking the trend and selling quite well in a market dominated by cheap foreclosures - and doing especially well compared with traditional new-home neighborhoods. The developer chalks it up to the fact that he is basically the only builder in town offering something green. Well, more green than just energy star appliances, low-e windows and insulation. It will be big business soon and those who get in on it earliest stand to benefit the most.