Today, I was reviewing the winners of the 2016 Gold Nugget Awards, from the Pacific Coast Builders Conference. I knew something quite different was up when the tab on a homebuilders website reads “Harvesting Privileges.” So, of course, I clicked the tab and what I found was the 2016 PCBC Gold Nugget Award Winning single family home “The Culinary Cottages”. The website informed me that “Culinary Cottage owners enjoy perpetual rights to harvest for their consumption, from all Flora Farm fields.

Right there, I knew that this community is opening a new chapter in the development book. While the Culinary Cottages are on Baja peninsula in Mexico, it is very easy to picture this style of community in South King County or East Snohomish County—both areas where we need to protect our open space AND accommodate the relentless growth in the Puget Sound region.

Mixing new home development with working agriculture is not a new idea; it’s just one that has been a little ahead of its time. Currently, there are some very smart people working on this concept in Western Washington. I invite anyone interested in this approach to contact me and I’ll make introductions. This approach to development can create vibrant, involved and sustainable communities while at the same time protect valuable farming resources. We have a who new generation of makers and growers coming along who can work these lands and provide healthy, local and organic produce for neighbors and our region.

Picture the interesting backdrop of fields becoming lush gardens with a rich harvest, and this is the view you enjoy from your home and yard.

In the meantime, If you want to see the rest of the line up of 2016 Gold Nugget Award Winners, click here.