Agriburbia idea grows in residential subdivisions

MILLIKEN – Mathew “Quint” Redmond gets excited when he begins to describe the advantages of a residential lifestyle he calls “Agriburbia.”

Redmond, owner of Golden-based real estate design company The TSR Group, sees Agriburbia, a concept he’s trademarked, as the coming wave for residential development. Its essential design ingredient – blending a rural land use ethic into an urban setting – is the reason he’s so pumped up on the idea.

“What we say is just having open space so people can see openings between houses is something we can’t afford anymore,” he said. “We’re saying use the land more wisely.”

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Agriburbia aims to keep neighborhood open space and wildlife habitat included in residential development plans, but adds one or more agricultural components to the mix. Those components can range from individual vegetable garden spaces to community agriculture projects to full-scale agricultural enterprises, such as vineyards and a winery, within the same development.

The key feature of an Agriburbia development, Redmond said, is to allow residents to be more in touch with the land and the food that comes from it.

“Up till now, developers just focused on shelter,” he said. “We want to address the human need of food the best we can. We believe agriculture is part of the infrastructure of a development.”

Milliken leads the way

The TSR Group has a few Agriburbia projects under way, with a 994-dwelling-unit project in Milliken leading the way. The project, called Platte River Village, has received preliminary approval from the town of Milliken and is ready to proceed pending financing.

In the Milliken proposal, the 618-acre Agriburbia design keeps almost 50 percent of the previously tilled land in production by leaving much of the perimeter and some of the interior of the subdivision open for the growing of high-yield crops.

The Milliken project is specifically focused on growing grapes and producing wine within the subdivision. Redmond said each Agriburbia project will likely be a little different, depending on what the developer sees as the best financial scenario.

“Developers can grow things and get revenue while waiting for people to buy houses,” he said, noting that each community enterprise would be professionally managed. “It’s a great risk for a bank because there’s revenue right away.”

Milliken officials are embracing the Agriburbia concept. “I would say it’s certainly an interesting concept and it adds a new dimension to Milliken in terms of the development projects we see,´ said Steve House, community development director.

Mayor Janie Lichtfuss said the concept “absolutely” fits Milliken’s vision of development. “It’s a unique concept because it uses the land well, not just to grow houses but also a crop of some sort,” she said. “I’ve always wished that a portion of a development would remain open to agriculture. It seems like a very wise use of resources.”

A 245-acre Agriburbia proposal has also been submitted to the town of Evans, and Jim Flesher, the town’s senior planner, said the Riverside Village proposal appears to be a solid idea.

“It is different, but yes, I think Evans is willing to look at innovative proposals,” he said.

“It’s a planned unit development, and it’s intended for innovative types of uses.”

Flesher said the 432-dwelling unit proposal is well-designed and would likely do well even without the Agriburbia aspect. “It might be a stroke of marketing genius, but I think the subdivision would work regardless because it has mixed uses – commercial, single and multi-family housing – and it’s close to the river,” he said.

Old and new idea

Redmond said the Agriburbia concept is based on a lifestyle common in the past. “Living close to your food is not a new idea – people used to do that all the time,” he said, noting as an example the “Victory Gardens” that people grew during World War II.

Redmond said having food grown within a subdivision has all the usual advantages of home-grown produce – higher nutrition, no chemicals, fresher quality – while also cutting down on carbon emissions caused by transporting it long distances.

“Transporting a tomato from California when we can do that here – it’s extraordinary the carbon that saves,” he said.

Redmond said another attractive aspect of an Agriburbia community is that residents can live there but not be forced to take part in any of the agricultural activities going on unless they want to.

“You can just go live in the subdivision and not grow anything at all, just be in that environment,” he said.

Redmond said the Agriburbia concept has received a lot of interest, with 1,500 hits on the company’s Web site in the first two months with no advertising. He said he hopes to break ground on the Milliken project in mid-2009 if the current credit freeze begins to thaw.

Meanwhile, he’s shopping the idea around and getting lots of interesting feedback. “People in the agricultural industry think we’re crazy and people in the development world think we’re crazy,” he said.

But Redmond’s convinced that the old idea of subdivision development is about to change. “I think it’s dead in the water, the old type of suburbia,” he said. “You can’t spend all that money on infrastructure and not get more out of it. We can’t keep spreading out without growing stuff in between.”