Setting:
Located just north of Taos on the highway to Taos Ski Valley in New Mexico, the Tarleton Ranch property has been a working cattle ranch and hay farm, responsibly owned and maintained by the same family for over three generations. The Tarleton Family is now focused on developing their 331 acre property as an Eco-Village with a variety of mixed uses, in a manner that preserves an unusually large 185 acres (56% of the Project Site) as permanent Eco-Farm Park open space for regeneratively sustainable community agriculture, recreation use, park use and wild life habitat restoration/enhancement.
Sustainability
Genesis:
Working with the Tarleton family and local developer Mark Yaravitz, John Halley of GaiaQuest has master planned a Permaculture based evolution of the existing Tarleton Ranch, into a very unique mixed-use eco-village development with Eco-Farm Park for generating renewable energy, growing organic food year round, providing enhanced ecosystem biodiversity and contributing a net zero carbon footprint opportunity that the health of our planet depends on for future generations.
Concept:
Developed around a central re-generatively sustainable Eco-Farm Park designed to produce bountiful localized nutrient rich organic food year-round, the Tarleton Ranch Eco-Village concept also uniquely offers local businesses, residents and visitors an opportunity for healthy re-generatively-sustainable lifestyles of live, work and play.
Principles:
- Nature predominates not buildings
- Rural village setting not urban
- Home size modest not enormous
- Exteriors simple not showy
- Design guidelines not “anything goes”
- Houses that form a collective sense of community, not “statement” houses
- Pleasing aesthetics valued not disregarded
Covenant:
Our unique interdisciplinary village planning incorporates principles and concepts of Traditional Neighborhood Design, New Urbanism Smart Code, New Ruralism and Permaculture Science in a manner similar to successful communities like Seabrook (Washington), Lookout (Washington), Sea Ranch (California) and Village Homes (California). The master plan proposal for this unique 331 acre property includes the eco-village features, uses, businesses and amenities.
Renewable Energy & Waste Treatment
Renewable Energy Sources:
• Low Temperature Ground-Sourced Geothermal and Annualized Geo Solar
• Onsite Solar Electric with Smart Grid
• Solar Thermal Heating
Tertiary Sewage Treatment plant with state of the art membrane technology and UV disinfection, providing TREV’s treated wastewater as an Eco Farm irrigation source:
Final biological treatment will be year-round in green houses equipped with Bio-remediation gravel/reed bed filters prior to discharge into TREV’s waste water system of ponds, swales and underground discharge pipes. TREV’s reclaimed waste water will be initially used for TREV farm irrigation that is allowed by prevailing government regulations. With anticipated agricultural university support, TREV will attempt to get government approvals for expanded agriculture use of this important water resource.