October 23, 2002
Intentional investment
Families pool together resources to create Telford Farm community
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
An intentional community is blossoming in Solon Township.
Comprised of nine families who have jointly purchased an 88-acre farm near Cedar, Telford Farm will be a home to people who are consciously choosing their neighbors and their lifestyle, building a strong sense of community based on shared values, goals and beliefs.
Eight of the families who purchased Telford Farm live in the Traverse City area, one lives in New York State and plans to move here in the future. They are people and families with different personalities, ages, professions and backgrounds coming together to create a model community they hope will inspire others.
"This is something we could never do on our own, but together we are able to be a part of that whole piece," said Kate Fairman of Maple City, who along with her husband, Bill Queen, plans to begin building a home at Telford Farm next spring. "We want this development to be clustered and environmentally friendly, where we would try to preserve the rural character of the land."
"It is a nice mix of people, we certainly weren't all one group of friends," continued Fairman, noting decisions are made on a consensus basis. "But everybody knew somebody from the beginning and we've just all been able to work well together. You draw on everyone's talents."
Telford Farm also has a business venture: the vineyard on the property. For the past four years, members of the community and a wide group of family and friends have held a grape-harvesting party every fall. The grapes they harvest are sold to Black Star Farms, generating both an income and a educational opportunity for all involved.
"None of us are farmers, but we plan to maintain it over the years," Fairman said. "There are also blackberries and apple and apricot trees and we definitely plan a community garden one day."
Joan and Brian Ursu of Long Lake Township got the ball rolling almost by accident five years ago. They first saw the land when returning from a skiing trip at Sugar Loaf. That same weekend they were finalizing an offer on a house in town, but after viewing this rolling, Leelanau County acreage - inspiring romantic memories of their meeting - they knew they should follow their dreams.
"When we walked the property, that was it," Joan Ursu recalled. "We never did take over that other offer for the house in town."
Buying nearly 90 acres of prime development land was beyond their reach financially. However, the next day, Joan Ursu, a lawyer, began talking about the land with two of her law partners, describing its beauty, the vineyard and the barn. Both became so excited their families soon wanted in, too. Then other neighbors and friends began signing on - including a winemaker they consulted about the vineyard and one person who signed up sight unseen based on a friend's description.
Eventually they had ten families assembled who collectively could afford the land. Even though a few families eventually dropped out, more came along at just the right time.
"I really look at it as the land found us," Ursu said. "We weren't a group to begin with."
The concept of an intentional community differs from a planned development in that the participants in an intentional community design and create the project themselves, working together. This is different from simply moving into a third party's vision of a community.
An intentional community is not a commune, either. Each family at Telford Farm will own their own _-acre lot and their own home, which they design and build. In addition, each family will own a percentage of the common land, which is held in a limited liability company. At least 30 of the acres will be a conservation easement with the Leelanau Conservancy, a fundamental commitment of the project, one that was very attractive to the seller.
Seven of the families involved have young children and are eager to have them grow up with a large parcel of land to play on with their friends. For the parents involved, some of whom are home schooling families, the situation is ideal.
"Our kids have a close relationship with all the families that are out there and a greater sense of responsibility toward each other," said Fairman, noting her family hopes to begin building next spring. "That's been real wonderful, when we go out there our kids can just be on pretty much any part of the land and we don't have to worry about them. They have a sense of freedom to roam around."
Sandi McArthur and Brian Anderson had been exploring founding an intentional community for years. They were members of the Bay Area Co-Housing Initiative, a group of area residents who began meeting in the mid-1990s to establish an intentional community. This group met for years and worked out a process but land never came along at the right time and members drifted away from the project.
Anderson said that he and some other families were actively pursuing a land purchase when they heard about Telford Farm. When their deal fell through after one of the partners bailed, they jumped at the chance to go in on Telford Farm.
"Living in a community like this was something I had always been attracted to since I graduated from high school in 1974," said Anderson, a carpenter who is taking the lead with much of the zoning and infrastructure issues on the land.
Working to create a slice of utopia has been an educational process for everyone involved, especially when it came to getting alternative zoning. The group worked closely with the Solon Township zoning and planning board members and received a green light this summer. Ursu said that the years-long process was beneficial to everyone in the long run.
"We ended up in many respects with a better plan because of the input from the township and because it took time to figure out what is the best design for that piece of property," she said. "Sometimes there are tensions between how to grow thoughtfully and what is the current state of zoning allows for or has conceived of."