Land Purchase or Consultant - Which Comes First?

Subject: Which comes first-consultant, or land purchase?
Date: Sun, 13 May 2001
From: Art Ludwig

> We are shopping for land. We are shopping for a
> consulting group. Should we make the land decision
> first, then get help, or should we find a firm and ask
> for guidelines about the land requirements for these
> systems, composting toilets, greywater?

You'd be best off:
1) Reading a bunch of books on the subject ("Finding and
Buying your Place in the Country" comes to mind; you can go
to Amazon.com and check books on the design features you're
interested in, then explore "people who bought this book
also bought..." links)
2) Developing a list of goals and site requirements, with
the help of a consultant if necessary (this might take
several hours of consulting time)
3) Identifying candidate sites, and having your consultant
review their suitability (this might take a couple days of
consulting time)
4) Buying the most suitable land and then having the
consultant help you develop a design and implement it (this
could take a couple of days to several weeks depending on
the complexity of the project and the distribution of work
between your ecological design consultant and any
other designers involved, such as yourselves and/or an
architect)


Good luck!
Art


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