The Cost of Land.

Living in Northeast Ohio like I do, I know that the closer to suburbia you live the more expensive land is. As Medina, Brunswick, Strongsville, and Cleveland begin to grow into one large urban sprawl, I see the effects of it in the realty section of the local newspaper. In my mind it is sort of like this clematis plant I used to have. It was at our old house and every year I would mow down this clematis plant (not the one pictured) and by the end of the season it would invade the yard and start crawling up the house. The "city folks" of the area remind me of my old clematis. Clematis is beautiful, and intriguing and the flowers smell great on it. For the most part, most of the city folk in our area are nice enough, kind, and even smell good (wink) but they can become invasive and have a tendency to crowd into an area and then overflow it.

As that has happened around here, the prices of land have skyrocketed. When I was a bright-eyed high school graduate 16 years ago (gasp, I have a hard time thinking of myself as older than 16 now) the price of land was around $4,000.00 to $5,000.00 an acre. I thought that was terribly high then. I mean we are talking about the late 80's here. I even remember when gas was .76 when I first started driving, after falling from "high" prices of 1.20 from the late seventies and early eighties. The thought of buying land never occurred to me then and it would have seemed way out of my reach anyways. Well, for what my priorities were.

Fast forward these sixteen some years. Many of the local communities have enacted local zoning laws that require a minimum of two acres to build a house. It is an effort to slow the urban sprawl supposedly. A two acre "lot" now starts at $55,000.00 in the area. So land is expensive for the most part and we have to live with the fact that it isn't getting any cheaper. So we know that when we buy a house that it will be WAY more expensive for the land and house that we want and that is just a part of living in the county where we minister. But let me tell you where my real complaint is.

I have a real problem with these 2 acre requirements to build a house. I mean the philosophy of everyone having space is good. But here is the problem that happens anytime a government gets involved with managing the lives of the people. What started out as good is no longer good. What started out as a buffer for urban sprawl has actually added to the problem. You see these two acre plots have so many deed restrictions when developers put them in that the true philosophy of everyone having their space has been destroyed. So let's say Joe Shmoe from Medina (only 30K in population) decides he is tired of the city life and wants to own some chickens. So he decides that although his job is in the city that he is going to move 10 miles out into the "country". He has read all about the "Have-More" plan and decides that the level of comfort he would have is to get one of those 2 acre plots and build a nice little house and a chicken coop. So as he is preparing to sign on the dotted line he reads a deed restriction that he can't have more than one chicken per member of his family and that it is for the purpose of participating in an agricultural club like 4-H. He most certainly will NEVER have any hogs on his land as there is a complete BAN on those pesky creatures, but he is allowed to have a pet horse. Of course, there is no where around to ride it because he only has two acres sandwiched between his neighbors $220K "farm" that has 3 rabbits and a turtle on it. So he has a choice, sign on the dotted line, have a small house between the "suburban farmers" for 160K or move on out a little further where he CAN have some chickens. Of course he never wants to grow anything or have neighbors that raise those smelly pigs anyways so he is not opposed to those "swine restrictions" on the new land. And this procedure is repeated and repeated until effectively there has been a leap-frogging of people and prices. So he doesn't have to worry about the city anymore but now he has to worry about a new problem, "keeping up with the FARMER Jones's". Eventually he has as many restrictions as the city did, a longer drive, and a whole heck of a lot more grass to mow. He decides to move back into the city because the price on the city houses with the city lots have remained steady where they were.

Voila, that is where we come in. But that will have to wait, because this is indeed a long post.

The Modern Homesteader