Homestead Property: More Things to Consider
Here are a some additional factors to consider when evaluating land for homesteading:
Restrictions on Land Use
Some of the very attractive piece of land I've looked at are part of developments or otherwise are have certain covenants that restrict what can be done on or with the property. For example, some limit the amount of time you have until your permanent dwelling is built, and the amount of time you can camp in a tent or have a camper on the land. Some do not allow mobile homes, or the use of popular alternative building styles such as yurts, cob or cord wood. Some limit the kinds and number of animals you can have. In some communities, you aren't allowed to have a home business or a farm that sells produce on site. One development whose covenants I read disallowed any kind of activity that the community deemed "immoral" or "indecent." That's not the community for me. I want to be able to occasionally enjoy the feel of the air on my bare skin in the areas of my property that are not visible to neighbors or the public, or smoke or grow marijuana where it's legally allowed by the state.
Access to Broadband, Cell Phone Service, Satellite Internet
When we first moved here to New Mexico, I found out that there was no cell service in the area for service I was already under contract to back in Maryland. And even once I changed cell service providers and though a cell tower for that provider is within five miles of my house, there are pockets on our road and in our town where that service is inaccessible. That can be a hassle if you have visitors or service people who get lost on the way to your house and need your help with directions.
Additionally, I moved from an area that had super fast internet uploads and downloads to an area where we alternate between satellite and our cell phones for service--and neither of those offers speedy or reliable access. We have to go to the nearest large town in order to download large files, uploading pictures is very slow, and streaming movies or music at home is not worth the effort. Additionally, I found that it's expensive and I no longer have unlimited uploads and downloads. We pay for what we use, and our satellite service is throttled and becomes useless after periods of heavy use.
Even though we're mostly off-grid, we still make use of a lot of different forms of modern technology in our day to day activities. If you're planning to be off the grid and to use alternative energy sources, and you use modern devices, keep in mind that many of them, including wireless modems, digital readers, wireless stereos and speakers, portable music playing devices, powered external hard drives, cameras, printers, desktops, laptops, and cellphones will need power and/or charging. One of my pet peeves is that the new MacBook/MacBook Pros no longer allow you to easily access the battery, so that you can keep a backup one on hand when the first one runs low.
Check out broadband access throughout the country here (http://www.broadbandmap.gov/).
Mineral Rights
In some areas of the country, West Virginia for example, it's common that even though you buy a piece of property, you don't own all rights to the land. If you don't own the mineral rights, for example, companies can come onto your property and remove those minerals, oil, and gas from beneath your land. Laws about mineral rights vary from state to state. To find out more about mineral rights and for links to information about our state's Mineral Rights and Records, check out this resource from geology.com (http://geology.com/articles/mineral-rights.shtml). YOu can find out about mineral deposits underlying areas you're interested in here (http://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/) through this database from the USGS.
Contamination
I want to know about the air, water, and soil quality in the area I choose to homestead. The EPA provides information about all of these things through its Envirofacts Database (http://www.epa.gov/enviro/index.html).
I mentioned the importance of soil quality for gardening in my last post. I've since come across Soil Survey (http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/HomePage.htm) from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a division of the USDA, has data on soil from soil surveys for more than 95% of the nation's counties.
Availability of Wood
Given that the heating source of my homestead would most likely be a wood burning stove, access to firewood is important. This is something I didn't put in my previous list because I'm assuming that I'll need to purchase wood or get a permit and gather it from BLM land: most of the properties I've been looking at have few trees suitable for firewood or building, and it's not likely that I'll be able to afford enough land to have a woodlot.
Vulnerability to Natural and Human-Made Disasters
Floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires are facts of life. Given ongoing drought conditions in the southwest, wildfires will happen, and wooded properties are especially susceptible, and given the remoteness of many homesteading properties, the fire department may not be of much assistance. If do find treed property, I want to be sure there's also enough clear space on the land that the house, gardens, and outbuildings won't be threatened if there is a wildfire.
With respect to human-made disasters, one thing I did not like about living in the D.C. area was the area's attractiveness as a target for domestic or foreign attacks. While I lived there, we dealt with the D.C. area sniper (who shot someone at the Home Depot about five miles from my house), the anthrax in the mail attacks, the highjacked plane crashing into the Pentagon, and repeated threats to the region's subway service. Given the horrific traffic on even minor holidays, I knew that if we ever did need to flee the area for some reason, the roads would be reduced to gridlock, and communication with family members to coordinate our activities would be impossible due to overloaded communication systems.
I feel somewhat safer to those kinds of threats now that I don't live in that area and I'm not as dependent on public services. But even outside of major cities, the risk of human-made disaster remains. I don't need to be a conspiracy theorist, or worried about an impending third world war or imminent economic collapse to argue that events such as radiation leakage from aging power plants, chemical spills from plants or the vehicles used to transport them, or attacks on military or research bases, ought to be considered possible and risk minimized. If I have a choice between different properties, I'm not going to choose one that's located in the vicinity of a major military base or a nuclear power plant.
You can find information about current and historical water flow, drought, floods, groundwater level, and water quality here (http://water.usgs.gov/floods/), through the USGS.
Restrictions on Land Use
Some of the very attractive piece of land I've looked at are part of developments or otherwise are have certain covenants that restrict what can be done on or with the property. For example, some limit the amount of time you have until your permanent dwelling is built, and the amount of time you can camp in a tent or have a camper on the land. Some do not allow mobile homes, or the use of popular alternative building styles such as yurts, cob or cord wood. Some limit the kinds and number of animals you can have. In some communities, you aren't allowed to have a home business or a farm that sells produce on site. One development whose covenants I read disallowed any kind of activity that the community deemed "immoral" or "indecent." That's not the community for me. I want to be able to occasionally enjoy the feel of the air on my bare skin in the areas of my property that are not visible to neighbors or the public, or smoke or grow marijuana where it's legally allowed by the state.
Access to Broadband, Cell Phone Service, Satellite Internet
When we first moved here to New Mexico, I found out that there was no cell service in the area for service I was already under contract to back in Maryland. And even once I changed cell service providers and though a cell tower for that provider is within five miles of my house, there are pockets on our road and in our town where that service is inaccessible. That can be a hassle if you have visitors or service people who get lost on the way to your house and need your help with directions.
Additionally, I moved from an area that had super fast internet uploads and downloads to an area where we alternate between satellite and our cell phones for service--and neither of those offers speedy or reliable access. We have to go to the nearest large town in order to download large files, uploading pictures is very slow, and streaming movies or music at home is not worth the effort. Additionally, I found that it's expensive and I no longer have unlimited uploads and downloads. We pay for what we use, and our satellite service is throttled and becomes useless after periods of heavy use.
Even though we're mostly off-grid, we still make use of a lot of different forms of modern technology in our day to day activities. If you're planning to be off the grid and to use alternative energy sources, and you use modern devices, keep in mind that many of them, including wireless modems, digital readers, wireless stereos and speakers, portable music playing devices, powered external hard drives, cameras, printers, desktops, laptops, and cellphones will need power and/or charging. One of my pet peeves is that the new MacBook/MacBook Pros no longer allow you to easily access the battery, so that you can keep a backup one on hand when the first one runs low.
Check out broadband access throughout the country here (http://www.broadbandmap.gov/).
Mineral Rights
In some areas of the country, West Virginia for example, it's common that even though you buy a piece of property, you don't own all rights to the land. If you don't own the mineral rights, for example, companies can come onto your property and remove those minerals, oil, and gas from beneath your land. Laws about mineral rights vary from state to state. To find out more about mineral rights and for links to information about our state's Mineral Rights and Records, check out this resource from geology.com (http://geology.com/articles/mineral-rights.shtml). YOu can find out about mineral deposits underlying areas you're interested in here (http://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/) through this database from the USGS.
Contamination
I want to know about the air, water, and soil quality in the area I choose to homestead. The EPA provides information about all of these things through its Envirofacts Database (http://www.epa.gov/enviro/index.html).
I mentioned the importance of soil quality for gardening in my last post. I've since come across Soil Survey (http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/HomePage.htm) from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a division of the USDA, has data on soil from soil surveys for more than 95% of the nation's counties.
Availability of Wood
Given that the heating source of my homestead would most likely be a wood burning stove, access to firewood is important. This is something I didn't put in my previous list because I'm assuming that I'll need to purchase wood or get a permit and gather it from BLM land: most of the properties I've been looking at have few trees suitable for firewood or building, and it's not likely that I'll be able to afford enough land to have a woodlot.
Vulnerability to Natural and Human-Made Disasters
Floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires are facts of life. Given ongoing drought conditions in the southwest, wildfires will happen, and wooded properties are especially susceptible, and given the remoteness of many homesteading properties, the fire department may not be of much assistance. If do find treed property, I want to be sure there's also enough clear space on the land that the house, gardens, and outbuildings won't be threatened if there is a wildfire.
With respect to human-made disasters, one thing I did not like about living in the D.C. area was the area's attractiveness as a target for domestic or foreign attacks. While I lived there, we dealt with the D.C. area sniper (who shot someone at the Home Depot about five miles from my house), the anthrax in the mail attacks, the highjacked plane crashing into the Pentagon, and repeated threats to the region's subway service. Given the horrific traffic on even minor holidays, I knew that if we ever did need to flee the area for some reason, the roads would be reduced to gridlock, and communication with family members to coordinate our activities would be impossible due to overloaded communication systems.
I feel somewhat safer to those kinds of threats now that I don't live in that area and I'm not as dependent on public services. But even outside of major cities, the risk of human-made disaster remains. I don't need to be a conspiracy theorist, or worried about an impending third world war or imminent economic collapse to argue that events such as radiation leakage from aging power plants, chemical spills from plants or the vehicles used to transport them, or attacks on military or research bases, ought to be considered possible and risk minimized. If I have a choice between different properties, I'm not going to choose one that's located in the vicinity of a major military base or a nuclear power plant.
You can find information about current and historical water flow, drought, floods, groundwater level, and water quality here (http://water.usgs.gov/floods/), through the USGS.
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