Access to Land

Young orchard trees, mulched beds, and paths beside a woodland edge.

Topics

Trusts: Private and public for housing, farming, forestry
Group purchase: Co-housing, intentional community, urban community block
Legal forms of tenure: LLC vs. partnership
Use of commons, landless movements and strategies

What you’ll learn

Learning goals

Revisit the ethics of land care
Understand some of the benefits and challenges in living in intentional communities
Know how and where to look for land to grow food

Read, watch & explore

Getting the books · access & editions

Use your own copy, buy the book, or borrow it through a library when possible. If you are local to me, contact me about borrowing a copy. You can also contact me for information about digital or other access to assigned readings.

Ask about reading access ↗

If your edition uses different page numbers, contact me and we can match the correct section. Contact instructor.

Ways to find growing space

Practical Permaculture describes neighbours, community plots, land trusts, leases, and asking for growing space.

Book reading

Practical Permaculture

Jessi Bloom and Dave Boehnlein

Pages 306 to 308: beginning at “Finding Land” and ending before the guerrilla-gardening discussion

Book access & editions

Book reading

The Permaculture City

Toby Hemenway

Chapter 8 — exchanging design and land-management work for reduced rent

Book access & editions

Ask through neighbourhood groups, community gardens, garden tours, or a direct conversation with a landowner. A small proposal can describe the space needed, what will be grown, who will maintain it, and what the owner receives. Schools, faith communities, and other institutions are possible contacts.

Watch Locavores and Yard-sharing, especially the Stacey Murphy segment: Open resource at pbs.org She describes finding a backyard through a farmers’ market flyer and neighbourhood contacts. Use it as a case study of how a land-sharing arrangement can begin.

Read

Locavores and Yard-sharing - PBS

PBS

Open resource

If you cannot access this resource, contact me for help with this reading or media.

Before using a site, agree on access, water, expenses, harvest sharing, maintenance, allowed changes, duration, and what happens when the arrangement ends. Longer-lived plantings need a suitable tenure horizon. A written record helps clarify expectations; legal and insurance questions need local advice.

Use this to choose the site for Module 3. Use a site you can study.