Becoming the Storm
9 It Takes a Village
“I’M NOT OBJECTING to the creation of a village community over here,” the man standing in front of the group said. “I’m just not certain I see an advantage to having us on the far corner included in it. We’re too far away to use the water supply. We already have a paved road. I admit it’s not as thoughtfully laid out as this little community, but we’re not going to change that. We’ll still be using county fire and sheriff services. What’s the sell?” He went back and sat down.
This was a really drawn out process and it was all futile. With Maribelle’s help, we convinced fourteen of the twenty households in the southeast corner of the section to come to the ranch Sunday afternoon to talk about the proposed village community. We’d given them a tour of the village, which now had the streets graded and curbs in. Foundations were being dug for the first three homes. The water tower construction was finished and the inspectors had certified our well. Water was filling the tank at a slow but steady pace.
It was the end of September and we needed to formalize the proposed platting of the community. It was all having an adverse effect on our studies. As soon as the conglomerate that owned the field next door heard we were thinking of platting a community, they decided to be difficult in the negotiations with John to buy the field for an airport. Their latest proposal had been double the price for half the land with a 150-unit development on the rest of the land. Of course, they wanted their development to back up to ours with the airport on the far side.
They had to be kidding. Nothing out here could support 150 cracker box houses. Of course, their proposal assumed that the village would pay for sewer and water for their development and when they started noising that around, the County got involved and said they had to maintain at least fifty percent of the total property as agricultural. The conglomerate had pulled back then and said they weren’t interested in selling at all. Everyone was pissed at everyone, and the existing development of twenty homes on the far corner of the section didn’t see any advantage in becoming part of our village. I had to agree.
It looked like our best bet at the moment was to annex that property and not the existing development. Then if we incorporated, we could zone the property and control what was built there, if anything.
“I talked to Dick Randall,” another man said. “I know none of you like him, but he warned us about this group when they moved in. He figures this is a way to get tax money without providing anything in return. Why is there nothing in the petition and proposal that talks about proposed tax rates? Now I’ve got nothing against El Rancho del Corazón, as you call it, or your proposed village community. But leave us out of it.” No one else stood up to address the group.
“On behalf of your neighbors here at El Rancho del Corazón, I’d like to thank you all for taking the time to come over and view the plans, and to express your opinions on the matter,” Rex said. He was our real estate attorney and this most closely matched his expertise. I raised my hand. “Brian, did you want to address the group?” I nodded and stood up in front of them.
“I just want to add my thanks and the thanks of the ranch and our residents. You notice that we didn’t try to pack the room with our people except to provide tour guides and refreshments. We really wanted to hear what you had to say. After listening to you, I have to say I agree with you. I am going to ask our attorney and surveyors to resubmit a proposal that excludes your area from the proposed community,” I said. “I want to tell you why. El Rancho del Corazón comprises people who know each other and who trust each other. There has never been an instance since we moved here that we have attempted to force our will on either our neighbors or each other. We don’t have, I mean you and our community as ‘we’, don’t have that mutual respect and trust for each other. Without that, the community would fall apart in short order. We would have enough votes from people who are legally resident here to force the inclusion of your development. But we won’t. And you should know that if at some future date you decide that your neighborhood should be part of the community, it would then require a majority vote of both the existing community and the annexed community. I think that proviso will help you all sleep at night.” There was some nodding and shuffling of feet.
“You’ll just drop the whole thing?” one guy asked.
“We will continue with the proposal to turn this portion of the township into a village community, excluding the Schmidt subdivision. That’s forty acres that Mr. Schmidt subdivided and sold off in twenty roughly two-acre parcels. We don’t know you and don’t want to force our vision on you. You don’t know us and from what I’ve witnessed here, a lot of you don’t even know each other. Our vision is for an ecologically sound community in which the neighbors all know each other and watch out for each other. I hope that we have shown so far and that you will continue to see that we are good neighbors,” I said. “Thank you all for attending this little gathering. I, for one, found it very informative.”
Rex ended the meeting and people chatted for a few minutes. We still had snacks on the counter and the triplets were quite a hit serving them. A couple of the women wanted to know about the studio and how they could get invited on Young Cooking. Most of the people were in their late thirties and forties. Not exactly our target demographic, but the women, at least knew a lot about our shows.
We finally got everyone off the ranch.
“You did a good thing, Brian,” Rex said as we sat around after the meeting. I wasn’t sure how legal it had been to have one of the cameras running and have the meeting shown in the family room of the big house. We didn’t want to overwhelm the folks at the meeting with everyone from the clan at it, but we also didn’t want anyone who was interested left in the dark. We weren’t actually having a clan meeting, but Rex, Anna, Marshall, Maribelle, Del, and several of our casa were sitting discussing how it had gone.
“We just exclude their community from the village?” Rose asked. “I don’t like us seeming elitist.”
“That’s just it, Rose,” I said. “They don’t have a community. They all own houses on that forty acres with little two-acre plots. But I don’t think even half of them knew each other. The more I got to thinking about it, the more it just seemed like we were asking for trouble. And they were right. We didn’t really have anything to offer them.”
“Who was that Dick guy they said warned them about us?” Jennifer asked.
“Oh, he’s part of the group that owns the land next door,” Del said. “He’s probably pissed at you all for buying this place.”
“Why?”
“Well, when Dave and Rochelle were off in school, Mrs. Wilkerson got pretty sick. I guess that the bills were a lot more than insurance would cover. Mr. Wilkerson put a big mortgage on his farm. You know this quarter was all theirs. There were originally only four families on this parcel that is a little more than a section. Mr. Wilkerson didn’t want to saddle his kids with property that was mortgaged to the hilt, so he finally gave up three-quarters to a group who said they were interested. The strict agreement was that the land would remain agricultural,” Del said.
“The bastards came in and cut all the trees,” Marshall said. “Clear-cut the whole woodlot. It about killed Ralph.”
“Why’d they do that?” I asked. How stupid.
“The whole woods is a mix of soft maple, oak, and a few other scattered hardwoods. It happened that the stand Ralph sold had quite a number of walnuts on it as well. Big ones,” Maribelle said. “I think what really got Mr. Wilkerson was that they cut it all and sold the lumber for about three times what they paid for the whole property. Ralph was so pissed that he convinced Dave and Rochelle that they could never sell to that group. I think, though, that they still figured they’d get the property in the end. It was up for sale for two years before you came along. Property out here wasn’t in that high a demand.”
“The group made offers on our place and yours, too,” Del said. “But they tipped their hand when they cut the trees and there was no way anybody was going to sell any more to them.”
“That name sounds awfully familiar. Dick Randall,” Anna said. “We need to screen carefully so we don’t accidentally sell a lot to them.”
“Well, one good thing is that without that southeast corner, you have the votes of all the residents and all but one of the owners,” Del said. “You might want to consider talking to Jones and Smith across the road. That would expand the boundaries and we’d have a lot more raw land to work with in terms of figuring the percentage of agricultural land to residential and business land.”
One of the determining factors for being officially recognized as a community was having some kind of business area. We had the studio, of course, and that qualified as a commercial property, though it was currently still assessed as a residence. After all, we had nearly twenty people living there. I was pretty sure, though, that the County Assessor would determine that it was a commercial property with apartments above when they did the official evaluations before the vote in April.
We’d also set aside a ‘downtown’ corner for small businesses. We weren’t planning anything spectacular, but we planned to open our own country market. Maribelle was driving that as an outlet for garden and farm products that could function long-term even without the produce from our garden and hers. We were also going to set up a design studio on one corner for Designed by Leonard. We wanted to be ready for business when the official announcement came on Chick Chat in the spring. We weren’t sure yet what kind of businesses we would want on the other two corners. I really wasn’t enthused about having a gas station there.
Rhiannon was working with the architect at Nappanee Manufactured Housing to develop designs and Ron had a land planner for his company that was doing all the layout and platting. They were having a ball as it wasn’t the usual street and cul-de-sac arrangement of most PUDs. I was thinking Rhiannon should have her new office there, but she shushed me on that, claiming she didn’t even have a degree yet and wouldn’t for three more years. She’d been accepted into the five-year degree program that would give her a master’s in architecture instead of just the BA.
Casa del Agua was looking toward the future, though. The bunkhouse duplex was intended for just three adults who shared a bedroom, and two guest rooms for the younger members of the casa. Now there were four adults sharing the bedroom and a nursery. The third bedroom was set up for Rhiannon, Sandy, and Doug to study. George and TK were in the dorms. Doreen told me their parents were talking about buying a lot in the village for a real house that would have room for their expanding family. I was pretty sure that as soon as Doug and Rhiannon were married, she was going to focus her energy on making babies instead of on architecture. Despite making sure Doreen knew she was welcome to move into the big house, I really didn’t want to split up their family. Doug was Matthew’s Daddy. He was his sister’s cónyuge. They needed to stay together.
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