The intent is to have a very wide range of buildings, from very small & affordable to large & elegant, determined by the budget and taste of the individual buyer.
Pricing will be based on the following elements:
- Location in the village - land near the industrial park may be valued lower than quieter zones
- Size of building, priced by the square meter of floor area and number of floors
- Amenities within (finish & details of rooms, such as kitchen and bath)
- Detail, ornament on the outside, and building complexity
Note that with 4,000 homes to furnish, the VOC intends to function as a wholesale purchaser of appliances and fixtures giving buyers a choice from utility to luxury models at lower prices.
Parallel market homes: The retail price of the home, once established will then serve as the benchmark for the reduced price parallel market homes. The village seeks to prevent gentrification, where essential or important sectors of a normal society get forced out by rising home prices. Often the place becomes attractive because of the presence of such sectors - the characters who run distinctive shops, the creative class, especially its artists, the service personnel - and the community becomes less vibrant when they are forced to leave because they cannot economically compete. To counter this without creating a bureaucracy, the VOC hopes to keep a vested interest in such homes, meaning they sell the home at discount to the target buyer (based on age: the young & old, or on essential occupation) with the requirement that when the owner goes to sell the home (at whatever price the market commands), they can only sell to a buyer within that qualified sector, thus creating parallel markets within the village.
Speculation: If the precedent seen in places like Davis, California and Poundbury, England are any indicator, the value of village real estate can be expected to increase markedly over the average housing in the region. This is a concern because the intent is to create habitat for people who want to live there, not attract speculators driven by pecuniary interet. The VOC has not worked out how to handle this as of yet, but it will be addressed.
