Keep forests as forests, more land for people

What I dont understand is why people have such huge houses on small lots. Doesn't make sense to me. I prefer a small house with lots of outside space to develope. It looks more in balance, gives you more privacy (your walls are further away from the property edge) and I'm sure the neighbors appreciate it too.

I agree, but most people don't. Maybe they think walls actually give them any measure of real privacy in SL? That would make them wish for more indoor space, at the expense of outdoor space.

Hell, some people don't use a single prim outside their walls. They have no interest in land at all. They just want a huge appartment.

Generally, the smaller a plot gets, the bigger the houses become relative to the plot. On the smaller plots, 1024 and around there, it's common to see people using rulers to get the biggest possible box up on the property that the covenant will allow. It's sad, but it's what people do. With plots of this size, I don't think there's any way around this. It's just too little land, with too many prims.

On bigger parcels, the problem isn't that bad, but it's still there. Of course, you also have to pay a hell of a lot more for the parcel.

The good point about the void sims is that you don't only get more land per buck - you get less prims. Modesty is more or less enforced due to a lack of prims - not that it means there aren't still some jerks out there who will use every single prim available to build a palace, and not plant a single tree.

In the end it comes down to this: COVENANTS.

You want a dreamhouse, on a dream parcel, with dream neighbours? Get land with a strict covenant, and people that ENFORCE it. Even Anshe Chung's dreamlands don't have covenants that are strict enough. In the end, a covenant is a contract of behaviour.

There is always someone who loves the neighbourhood (becuase the neighbours build according to the covenant) and then think they have a god-given right to BREAK the covenant themselves. As such a covenant has to dictate everything, precisely:
-Maximum building height on parcel.
-Maximum building height at a given distance from parcel border.
-Maximum building surface / volume (to prevent building the biggest house in ALL directions.
-Minimum altitude for flying structures.
-Access/Ban line rules.
-Eject/Push Security system rules.
-Terraforming rules.

The covenant must also contain "fishier" things.
-"No Eyesores" clause, with examples.
-"Theme" clause, with examples.

Theme and eyesores are harder to enforce, since you can't measure it exactly, and it will take a lot more effort on the part of the sim managers. Where do you draw the line for what constitutes a "beach house" or a "cottage"? I mean, where exactly? What is an eyesore? A house that has been built by a three year old? Yes. A concrete box, perfect, but ugly? Depends on who you ask. An English cottage on a tropical beach? Depends... A nice house, that looks like shit because there are no trees around? Borderline case, unless your covenant states something to the effect. No doubt you see the problem.

The bottom line is that very few land lords have strict covenants, and even fewer show any vigilance in enforcing them. Slum lords want the land sold, and once sold they don't give a shit. Good land lords, like Anshe Chung, have a strict covenant and hold people to it. If you house is too large - it comes down. Their "eyesore" clause though, is never used as far as I know. A 4m high brick wall in your face, close to the property line, is perfectly ok it seems, as long as it's well made. They enforce the numbers - but not always the *meaning* of the covenant.

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Properties are a bitch to sort out... And I guess I'm good at bitching about it.

AD

You can have strict covenants and someone will still build an eyesore within the rules... no matter how good your "eyesore" rules are... and if you try and make the eyesore rules too good you'll scare off the kinds of people who are likely to make good looking and interesting builds.

There is no replacement for good taste.

If you have neighbours without it... there are always invisiprims.

We need to start a group.. green space for SL lol!
In RL I only have neighbours on one side, and bush on the other with Wallabies and other wildlife coming to visit. I dont want my SL to deviate much from this, and when I first bought my block it had a mass of trees on the border to the block behind me. This was private land and they have since subdivided and cleared the trees. I have buildings all around me, and my defence to this was to plant masses of trees (after discovering the LL trees are only one prim - whoohoo! Nestled in this I created a patio and a one room 'shelter' which allowed me to try on clothes in semi-privacy! but I wanted more prims, more prims! the block next to mine finally came up for sale, and I paid WAY too much for it (chrissie present to myself ) and now I have 1024x1024. I stripped EVERYTHING off the land, sculpted it and created a waterfall... I am now in the process of using half my prims to plant trees all around the edge, and ferns etc around my waterfall. There is a tiny block (256x256) adjoining my little estate which I would love to buy but simply cannot afford it... worried about what is going to happen there, but thats what trees are for.. so there are plenty of us out there who just want the green spaces.. I would love to see 'wildlife corridors' (as green space is called here) between each region - it wouldnt have to be wide, just a couple of metres.. Or park land dedicated to greenery.. where people can wander and chat and catch up without being pummeled with advertising, and without private individuals having to bear the cost. Even ONE region like this would be fantastic... and to have one stable place in such a volatile and changeable environment would be of great benefit...

sigh... lovely dreams...

Already created one, I called it Greenpiece

It already has 6400+ sqm of land under management.

I'm still working on the charter, info etc but the general idea is to build bushland/parks around the mainland for people to enjoy.

The current land is a mess, but I hope to have it turned into a nice park soon.

People are more than welcome to join in, especially if your good at landscaping/terraforming!

Oh this sounds like fun! If my bandwidth stops messing with my mind and ever lets me back into SL, I will come and check it out!

A word about openspace (void) sims.

I've added some of these to my sims to great effect, and the people using them seem very happy. Didn't hurt that they were class 5 openspace sims either; I was quite lucky that I got higher performance sims at old rates in that 15 day window when it was possible. Incidentally, they booked solid in less than 20 minutes.

But here's the painful issue:

Old, pre Nov 05 rates:

1250 USD down, 195 USD/mo for four: if all four fully rented for say, 75 USD/mo each, a net profit of 105 USD/mo, it takes several months to recover investment cost. Depending on what land fee you charge 'up front'. A risky but reasonable venture for the dedicated.


New, post Nov 05 rates:

1675 USD down, 295 USD/mo for four: Forget about charging old rates, or you'll be making 5 USD/mo over cost, with breakeven possible after several years or more. Because you'll not so easily move voidsims for land fees of 1675/4 USD (418.75 USD, or about $L 113,000 each).

So the question is: how much money are you willing to lose, while constantly scrambling to maintain tenants?


Sure, land rates can go up a bit, but the higher the price, the greater the turnover. Bottom line, higher price = higher user churn = more time you must constantly invest to get new tenants, just to break even.


If anything took a square hit with the new fee increases, it was new wilderness area on the grid.

I've been trying to find an angle to increase the wilderness areas my sims already have, but... so far, no way to do it without passing on very high costs.

Higher prices = less wilderness = more tragedy of the commons = uglier grid.

Here's one thing I never understood: Is there any reason why a 256*256 meter sim with 15k prims couldn't have a "border" of say... 128m extra? Space that can't be built on, terraformed or anything... Just 10m deep ocean. Zero data storage needed. Zero cpu power needed. All it'd be good for is adding distance between developed sim centers. Sailing would be possible even through (around) a fully developed sim. It wouldn't use more resources - just need the sim coordinate system changed from 256*256 to 512*512.... If oyu could also reserve, say 310 prims for that border area, you'd be guaranteed to always be able to fit 10 maned vehicles there too...

Just something I thought of...

There are really good forests around in SL that I have found so far. You can look some from my picks. But now I found one awesome forest: It is located at Misty Acres (45, 63, 27) in a holodeck! Very realistic and really familiar looking forest to me, I already felt like being at home. There is also some bird singing. The holodeck has other programs than the forest, too. Unfortunately the deck is quite small, so its just a sightseeing place.

Yeah... Probably a bit too small to make room for all those tens of thousands of people that actually want to have a house in or near a forest.