This week, Crooked Forest Institute achieved one of its strategic objectives by completing the purchase of 52 acres of land for the location of its education campus in Grant County. The land is located on Rt 35 in the Mimbres Valley, east of Silver City, New Mexico. The northeastern corner of the property is located across Rt 35 from the Mimbres Valley transfer station. The land purchase was made possible by a generous grant from the Tides Foundation.

The land is currently fenced, but otherwise undeveloped, and has no well or electric on site. Crooked Forest Institute will begin a process of engaging the community to hear what kind of development would be welcome, and what would not be welcome, before starting any projects.

Crooked Forest Institute is an innovation and research institute exploring how to provide the essentials for healthy society while simultaneously increasing ecological health of the surrounding environment. The five educational priorities of the Institute are Non-Toxic Living, contributing to the Local Economy, Adobe Construction, Shared-Equity Land Ownership, and Ecological Restoration. The Institute intends to develop a vocational education component of their non-profit housing developer program, in order to build small, healthy adobe homes on shared-equity land.

If current trends continue, our region can expect more fires and less rain. As such, Crooked Forest Institute is focused on water conservation, high-efficiency, organic drylands food production systems, as well as on healthy home construction, as part of their innovation focus.

When conventional homes burn, they leave a toxic mess that decimates the surrounding microbial ecosystem. Crooked Forest Institute is designing fire-proof, mold-proof homes made from compressed earth blocks and metal roofing assemblies. Not only will the homes not burn, but entire neighborhoods are designed to support and expand a healthy microbial diversity, which sequesters carbon.

In order to provide dignity, safety, and housing for the maximum number of people within the limits of what each ecosystem can support, Crooked Forest's home designs are small and simple. Their pilot project is a ten-home neighborhood on shared infrastructure. The homes are only 400 square feet each, but have their own kitchens, and bathrooms. By creating homes that are the size of the largest RVs, Crooked Forest envisions securing a specialized ordinance (as has happened in two other New Mexico counties), allowing for permanent structures to be built on RV park infrastructure. The 400 square foot adobe homes would be built on each RV site (with no RVs), while the whole neighborhood would be located on a Community Land Trust, so that each of the small homes would be buyable.

A Community Land Trust is an example of Shared-Equity Land Ownership. Land is placed into this kind of trust for the benefit of the community, in perpetuity. Community Land Trusts create permanent safe havens for low-income residents, especially if they are over 65, have a disability, or are among a historically disenfranchised population. Another example of Shared-Equity Land Ownership is when a manufactured housing community buys the land where it is located and becomes a Resident-Owned Co-operative.

The 52 acres that was just purchased by Crooked Forest Institute is owned entirely by their 501c3 non-profit organization, but several acres will be donated to their Community Land Trust program so that a small neighborhood may be constructed within the Education Campus.

Although nothing will be decided before the surrounding community in the Mimbres Valley has an opportunity to provide feedback, other possible projects that may develop on the Education Campus are a co-operative adobe brick and compressed earth block (CEB) manufacturing yard, a native plant propagation nursery, a hydroponic and/or drylands food production innovation hub, an ecological restoration/agroforestry program, a marketplace and of course, the school itself, which will also serve as a community center and event center for the Mimbres Valley.

Crooked Forest Institute hopes that an independent Community Land Trust will be established in or near Silver City and the surrounding towns, so that Crooked Forest Institute, along with other housing developers (both for-profit and nonprofit), will have an opportunity to build affordable housing for the community in the near future.

Community members who are interested in learning more, or volunteering, can subscribe to the mailing list at https://crookedforestinstitute.org to receive updates.