SCA owned land

[Mark Harris]

Catherine says:

Well, I realize the first could be remedied and I was only halfway serious
about the second.  However, just from my own personal viewpoint, unless I
win BIG in the lottery I neither have the time nor the money to go to more
than one or two events a year north of Dallas (have only ever been to one
in OK at all, Mikael's first coronation) so if the site for most kingdom
events were there, I guess I'd be left out in the cold.  The "perfect site"
would need to be more centrally located in the kingdom, for all concerned.
And yes, a permanent site--centrally located--would be *very nice* and we
might even be able to help maintain it by renting it out.  Of course, that
would entail a whole new set of details which probably don't even need to
be discussed here because I can't see us raising that kind of money.
------

Catherine, many people in the West Kingdom have had concerns similar to
yours: How can we raise enough money, What if it's not near us, Who has
control of the site, etc. 

To help give you some perspectives from the West, I am enclosing a portion
of my file on the West Kingdom Land Fund. I appologize if anyone thinks
this is too much to post; I did trim it down some.

Stefan li Rous


From: Dorothy J Heydt (6/10/94)
To: Mark Harris
Mail*Link¨ SMTP               RE>West land fund, etc.

Under West Kingdom Law, no branch can be compelled to comtribute
to the Kingdom.  This is actually an issue at the moment.  The
"non-member surcharge" is still a live issue.  If we implement at
all, we will raise site fees by $1 for everyone (most likely).
If more than $3 per non-member is collected (as is very likely
for local events in the West), there is no way for the excess
funds to help the Kingdom--though we can request it for the
Kingdom funds (Travel Fund, KHTI, etc.).

> > Do you have to have the money first before you can purchase the land? Or
> > was some type of mortgage not desired? How did you get around the politics?
> > Around here I could see a fight over what part of the kingdom this land
> would
> > be put in. The groups closest to it would get the greatest use out of it.
> 
> One needs enough money up-front to be taken seriously by sellers
> and agents.  The plan is (as far as I know) to put about $100,000
> down and the seller will take back about an $80,000 interest-only
> mortgage with the prinipal due as a ballon payment after 7 years.
> 
> Other money will be needed for site improvements like roads,
> water and the like.  Since there is no piped in water, there will
> need to be some form of holding tank, for instance.
> 
> >>>>>>
> How long did it take to collect the current land fund? I do realize 
> that once the site is being used you can collect site fees to pay off
> the loan and that you will be paying more than half the land price
> in cash. 

The Land Fund has been build for about 20 years.  Over half of it
has been raised in the last 5 years, though.  Contact Eilis for
details on how *that* was accomplished.

As it is, the site in escrow is within 2 to 3 hours of at least
60% of the populace of the West.  (My estimate.)  As Flieg put it
once--the site is equally inconvenient to everyone.

The central pasrt of the West is really quite compact compared to
nearly every kingdom except Caid, or possibly Atlantia.

> How big is this site?

74 acres.  At least 40 acres of it are flat.  It is my estimate,
that by renting the fields of neighboring landowners for parking,
we could camp as many as 3,000 people on the site--and still have
the parking close enough to avoid running shuttles.  With a bit
more creative use, and depending on neighbors being willing to
rent us most of the surrounding flat areas, that might rise to
handling 5,000 people.

> I hope they put in a big enough water system. One of the problems
> with the site used for the Gulf War in Merides was the water supply.

I have been to any number of events where all the water had to be
trucked in, so working with minimal water supplies is something
the West can deal with.  The conditions in the West have more in
common with West Texas than with the eastern parts or Meridies.
San Francisco, for instance averages about 21 inches of rain a
year.

> I have personally put in a number of work hours clearing sites of
> brush and rocks, making fire pits and cutting trails and then had
> the site pulled from SCA use or the rates raised so high as to
> force us to abandon use of the site. The idea of having our own
> permanent site is appealing.

Digging fire pits....  Oh, my....  It is an extraordinary Western
site that permits ground fires at all.  You may have heard
references to "protable fire pits."  They're a common sight here
and work very well.  When one is camping in 2-foot-tall dry grass
(a common problem here), one is *very* careful with fire.  You
probably saw my letter to the editor in _TI_ about candelaria.
That was a major concern of mine when the original article
appeared less than a week before June Crown last year.

	--Hal

From: Dorothy J Heydt (11/20/94)
To: Mark Harris

Mail*Link¨ SMTP               RE>One Million Dollars

> >KHTI is in the business of finding, buying, and developing land
> >primarily for SCA use.  As such, it needs *large* sums of money
> >if we are to have KHTI-owned sites at all near by.  The deal that
> >failed earlier this year would have purchased 74 acres for
> >something over $180,000--and that was 2 hours from the main
> >population centers of the "central" West.
> >
> Oh!! :-( What happened? You described the land and the mortgage
> arrangements and some of the development ideas to me in a message
> a while back. I guess I'd gotten the idea it was a done deal.

The neighbors turned out and opposed the use permit.  No use
permit no camping.  Rather than make a fight out of it, KHTI
decided that having neighbors that were unhappy was deceidedly
counterproductive (much to the relief of the planning commission
that really *liked* the idea in the first place).

So anyway....  The hunt for land is on again.

	--Hal
<the end>