Marketing and development
From HUG Wiki
Contents |
HUG high level goals
- Promote sustainable living............ (Do Good)
- In a very pleasant way.................. (Have Fun)
- Sustain itself and employees........ (Make a Living at it)
- .
HUG proposed main source of income
- Sell housing in a sustainable, agricultural community
- The term "ARC" refers to the community
- The term housing refers to the living quarters that a customer purchases
Proposed price range of housing
- About $100k per module.
A 25 foot long module contains a total of about 1500 square feet. Of that, about 1/2 is totally private. The other half is atrium.
One or two people could easily live in a single module. A spacious house for a large family might take 3 or 4 modules.
This housing is worth more than average because it lowers your cost of living.
The price could be reduced if we just sold the unfinished space. Buyers could "build" their interior living spaces any way they want (within covenants).
Proposed sales volume
12 houses (30 modules) per year would likely keep us operating at the level of about 20 employees.
- This means that we have to create about 5 acres of permaculture garden per year in addition to a finished housing unit every month, and the public spaces around it.
To keep people raising food requires enough people in the community to support each other. This starts out with training from HUG people. It is sustained by enough residents who practice the art every day. The absolute minimum community size would be three houses. This size would often need support from HUG or another community. Twelve or 20 is a more comfortable scale to keep things operating.
Proposed customers
At first we expect to sell primarily to baby boomers. They were exposed to a lot of environmental issues in school. Many were part of the 1970s back-to-the-land movement. They got caught up in careers and raising kids. Now their careers are winding down, kids are out of college, house is too big. They are ready for a change. They now have time to pay attention to the environmental issues that fascinated them as young adults. They can often pay cash for a condo.
Ideally we want many age groups in the community. We prefer residents who have no debt at all.
We might find that young people need special financing. On the other hand, there may be enough that can pay cash (due to inheriting a house or something).
Eventually we will get efficient enough to survive with low income customers.
Value propositions
Why people will want to buy into an ARC
- Sense of community
- Healthy lifestyle, good food
- Resilient economics; Weathers economic upheaval well
- Resilient to Global warming climate changes
- Help relieve guilt about what we are doing to the environment
- Sense of doing the right thing, bragging rights, notoriety
- A less expensive way to live both economically and environmentally.
Marketing importance of ARC components...
- on a scale of 1-10 Think of yourself as the buyer; How important are these features.
- rate it yourself by adding another column of numbers in each category
- First column is Paul's feel for it
- Second column is Graham's
- Third is Ryan's
- Fourth is Jim
- Fifth is Ed
- Sixth is Scott (See Notes)
- Seventh is Dug
- Eight is Lynn..ok so I will conform
- Nine is Raya
| P | G | R | J | E | S | D | L | R | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 8.5 | 7 | 6 | Natural materials in building (Low toxicity, low embedded energy, more solid mass) |
| 6 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 10 | 7 | 7 | Remodelable interior of housing unit. (allows people to express the housing gene by re-arranging and re-finishing their space) |
| 7 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 6 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 7 | No sewage effluent (Reduces pollution, regulations, freezing issues) |
| 8 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 9 | 9.5 | 10 | 7 | Water re-use; (Drought resistant, less pollution, sense of abundance, little actual water usage) |
| 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 8 | Self heating (Reduces pollution, costs, reliance on big system) |
| 9 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 7 | Low electrical usage (Reduces pollution, costs, reliance on big system) |
| 8 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 9 | 9 | 8.5 | 9 | 7 | Low cost air conditioning (Reduces pollution, costs, reliance on big system) |
| 10 | 8 | 6 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 8 | Growing most of food; having greenhouse and garden (Fresher, healthier, shorter loops, less pollution, much less cost, less reliance on system) |
| 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 6 | Carpool (reduces pollution, costs, maintenance issues, traffic, parking, insurance, increases choice of vehicle type) |
| 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 6 | little need for cars (Less cost, less hassle, less noise and pollution) |
| 7 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 5 | Indoor street/walkway/hallway (pleasant path to neighbors and to your car, play area, enhances people interactions, handy during bad weather) |
| 6 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 9 | Community meeting areas, cooking space (think parks, picnics, party space, education, meetings) |
| 6 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 5 | Community indoor natural pool (recreation and exercise, no chlorine, lots of light, lots of plants, ) |
| 6 | 8 | 5 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 10 | 10 | Built to withstand extreme weather conditions: 10 feet snow, drought, deluge, brush fires ( |
| 10 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 10 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 7 | Hands on expert training to make most of permaculture etc. |
| 8 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Purchase unit under $500k |
| 3 | 8 | 7 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9 | Purchase unit under $300k |
| 2 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Purchase unit under $100k |
Scott's Note #1: The communities should be self sufficient. They shouldn't need any utilities from the outside. If those are available I have no problem with them being used, but many places in the world don't have them, so we should make our designs so they don't need them.
Scott's Note #2: We think of self heating because we are in a part of the world where we need heat. There are many parts of the world where 'self air conditioning' would be more appropriate.
Raya's notes- I think we have to be careful to price it right and advertise it right to get the right clientèle. We also need to devise a way the community can control/ judge itself.
Ed's comment - "We also need to devise a way the community can control/ judge itself." Do we want to design how all/any of the communities using our proposed technologies will “govern” themselves as part of our “product”? It seems to me the clear implication of the lifestyle changes we expect to happen is nothing short of a cultural paradigm shift. Rather than expect we can design that, while so many dedicated people have been working in that direction in so many ways for so long, I think we would do well if we could start intentions at forging connections with the community of people working for and living in ecological based co-housing and related efforts AS we design our technology (not after).
Graham - When it comes to the technologies and the infrastructure, I approach from sort of a survivalist point of view. I think the most important things to be sustainable and self-sufficient in, are the things you need frequently - water, food, heat, power, waste recycling, transportation fuel, and maybe clothing. I agree with Scott on this. I'm less worried about things that are durable like the buildings themselves. It's not so bad to use nonrenewable or high-energy materials for things like wind turbine blades or foam insulation. Natural local building materials are still nice to have from a disaster preparedness point of view - you could more easily rebuild after an earthquake or storm.
For the whole package, the infrastructure plus the community rules, my hope is find a formula that can work on a massive scale, that would be as popular as suburbia, because that's what its going to take, to solve the sustainability problem. Anything we can do to turn the cultural barrier Ed speaks of into a cultural magnet. I approach the rules question from a freedom and tolerance point of view. I am leery of social engineering and don't like the word "governance" at all, got enough of that thanks. My hope is that the architecture of the place will naturally foster a community spirit. I'd be disappointed if we end up with something that requires Maoist or Mennonite levels of repression, or filtering people into some cultlike homogeneity.
I believe it is very common even in non-eco developments that there is a homeowners association or club, where people discuss things of common interest such as security, property values, emergency preparedness, what kind of shed can I put up etc. I think all we have to do is set one up, make some suggestions, and let the residents work things out amongst themselves.
Prepared remarks, Master of Ceremonies, ARC Welcome Reception: "Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It's my great pleasure to welcome you to the ARC. Um, we at HUG know you have a choice of housing options, and we're glad you've chosen ours *grin*. Although actually, according to this paper in my hand, it is now yours! Congratulations! and welcome home. Um, depending on how your unpacking is going, it may not seem that homey yet, but we believe, here you will find everything you need to make it so. You can count yourselves among those farsighted enough to have grown wary of relying, for your every need, on a system of intensive agriculture and global trading, which is highly productive but unsustainable - a brittle and far-flung system, which requires vast inputs of nonrenewable fuel and produces unacceptable damage to the environment. You have chosen, a more resilient path. And, we hope and believe, a better life. Many authors have noted the unintended consequences, the paradox that advances in mobility and telecommunication tend to undermine civility and community spirit. We hope and believe you will find here, not only fertile ground for crops to sustain life, but that you will also find, in the corridors and public spaces, fertile ground for community as well. And that not only will the diverse plants of your permaculture gardens prosper, but also that you, as free, diverse, and self-reliant people, will come together in a spirit of tolerance, and prosper as well. Thank you. Maestro, if you please? The dance floor is now open. Be excellent to each other, and party on!"
