If you were given the opportunity...

[milifestyle]

... to attend a conference on the future direction of your town or city, what sustainable or permaculture ideas an thoughts would you want put across ?

[eco4560]

Town planning to ensure that all future subdivisions include enough arable land to supplement the food of the people living there. Something like 20m2 per bedroom.
And ensuring that each suburb has land put aside for a community garden.
Closed loop rubbish systems.
Every house has a decent sized rainwater tank that is plumbed in to the loo and the laundry and the garden and the swimming pool. Actually - ban the pools.... unless they are natural ones with passive systems not using grid electricity to function.
Make composting loos and using grey water in your garden legal. And keeping chooks. Sorry chickens.
I'm being greedy now - time to get off the soap box.

[milifestyle]

Thanks eco, thats the sort of thing i'm after... anyone else ?

[permup]

The legal right to plant veg on your nature strip, without having to submit (and pay for) a development application to council, which they will refuse anyway.

[Dreamie]

Design the community around walking paths rather than roads, design it like a flower with each petal being like a leaf with the major veins being roads and the smaller veins being walking paths and easements. Nature strips and roads are created to be wildlife habitats. Clover lawns, storm water catchments (Reed beds placed every 75 meters), gravel pits in each nature strip for water catchment near trees. (Basically a reverse storm water system, moves water from the drain into a pit burried in the nature strip). Groupings of perennial plantings around each tree (Tansy, Comfrey, Yarrow). This will stop a large amount of water from leaving the area.

All blocks face onto an easement (Some only face an easement) which is a grassed storm drain / dry creek bed / walking path. Like the old laneways for sewerage removal. This area becomes a flow point for energy and people it is used as a flow point for grey water after it has been through onsite reed beds. This again is used for plantings of perennials.

Each nature strip / easement area tree is either an edible tree or habitat tree. Apples, Pears, Figs, Nuts etc. Extremely limited use of ornamentals except where required.

The legal right to plant veg on your nature strip, without having to submit (and pay for) a development application to council, which they will refuse anyway.

This wouldn't be needed if everyone had enough land for their vegetable patch.

Use the nature strip / easement for the Zone 4 and Zone 5 and use your own land for Zone 1, 2 and 3.

Each building must have a green barrier, at least 1.5 metres of green around the building. This stops people from building right on the property line. For multiple residence properties (apartments etc) a green roof must be installed. For single property sites a minimum of 20m2 of land per person. For all habitable buildings a base 50m2 of land is required this can include green roof space / vertical gardens (Approximate land sizes).

Onsite sewerage and grey water treatment is encouraged through defined practices and its use is controlled by guidelines.

Communal Gardens / Centres are located at least every 1 kilometre at the middle of a flower these are the location of shops and exchanges and small community gardens for apartment complexes. Only a single road leads to the communal area all other paths are walking tracks.

[Grahame]

. what sustainable or permaculture ideas an thoughts would you want put across ?

all of them...

Actually, its a good question because I wouldn't know where to start with this town. It is small with a lot of retirees, commuters and surrounding broadacre farms and people who can't afford to rent in nearby towns. A lot of what happens around here is 'old school'.

I'd like to close the road that goes down by the creek, people use it as a by-pass around town because they can go 80 rather than 60, and they can do fishtails just outside our house because it isn't sealed. The big quarry trucks like to use it too - I suppose the corrigations give them a thrill.

I'd like to see farm boundaries taken back from the creeks. I'd like to see the abolition of chemicals (fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides) in the area. Abolish monoculture farming, some people still burn stubble around here (need I say more about that?). People who have hundreds and thousands of acres, buy their fruit and vegetables from the supermarkets 20 or 30kms away and usually get there in 4WD vehicles. I'd like to see their land taken away from them and given to people who have a clue.

I'd also like to do away with old ladies who like to water their ornamental gardens when ever they feel like it in the middle of 10 year droughts because they-are-old-and-they-deserve-it-and-no-one-will-mind-because-we-are-old-ladies. And retired blokes who drive around in their 4WD, back and forward to the farm 64 times a day to help out the son who now runs the farm. And I'd like to ban those big tanks they have on the back of their trucks filled with some scary looking blue chemical.

GMO free goes without saying.

Should I keep going?

Sustainable building codes would be good (I mean real ones).

[ecodharmamark]

G'day Eric

Our community has just been through the process. You might find a few good ideas in the final draft which can be found here:

Bendigo 2036

Don't forget to check out the 'voices of the people' in the Appendix (pp.36-9); you may even recognise some of the themes are very similar to the posts of a certain person who hangs around here.



Thinking/writing of conferences, I'm about to visit Hobart (Tasmania, Australia) for a few days:

PIA Planning Congress 2011 - Program

Cheerio, Markos

[sun burn]

Some great ideas above guys.

What's been uppermost in my mind of late is all about garden waste disposal, and other waste disposal. I don't know if its permaculture principle or not but i think its better for the environment, better for the community - even if it makes less money for the council and costs them less too.

1. Domestic garden waste should not be collected by council trucks or contractors and taken miles away for mulching and then sold on or used on public gardens. It should be mulched on the spot for either at cost or given free back to the home owner for their own garden. The amount of garden stuff before and after the cyclones and in general up here is huge. This would save a lot of money on fuel. A lot of labour costs for council also. And do untold good for everyone's land. I am sure the council has enough mulch supply without needing what we produce ourselves. Either that or mulch near where its been collected and let people come and get what they want. So one deposit per block perhaps.

2. A pipe dream but it would be nice to see a small space in each suburb or every few blocks where people could dump their recyclables for others to pick over. (If someone is keen to give their junk to St Vincent de Pauls and the like, they can still do that as per usual by taking it to their depots or putting it in their bins.) But meanwhile this other method would save a lot in landfill, help the poorer members of the community (or just the cheapskates and recycle fanatics like myself). The council could merely collect what was left on a certain day every week. And if there is a public outcry about the mess from certain members of the community, it wouldn't be hard to hide it with some well placed shrubs. Or people could be asked to dump their stuff between x-time and y-time. Ie within one or two days of it being collected so that people have time to dump it and others have time to pick over it. Less rubbish would have to be collected and sent to landfill. It would save money for rate payers and council and save on fuel, labour and machinery maintenance costs. Either way, councils (our council at least) needs to enable more community recycling of household garbage.

[milifestyle]

Great info, thanks guys...

[PennyWA]

All the ideas are great. I would like to see the school/s for the area becoming true places of learning not as they are becoming- places where children are constantly under pressure to pass tests which do not allow for different learning styles or different developmental stages.