…Aylesbury Plantation is just three miles from the Georgia-Florida state line.

 

…a gallon of gas in Georgia usually costs 10 to 20 cents less than in Florida. Why? Taxes.

 

…Jefferson County has about as many people today as it did in 1900.

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THE CONSERVATION DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT

A conservation development is a community where at least 50 percent of the land remains natural and preserved in an interconnect network of open space.   This open space is owned and managed by the homeowners who live there.  Some land planners believe that conservation developments are a creative way to preserve the beautiful county landscape in our rapidly disappearing rural areas.

 

A conservation development does more than preserve land.  With good design and the cooperation of the people who move there, a conservation community can also help preserve the culture of those warm, friendly rural neighborhoods where they are located.

 

Randall Arendt is a landscape architect and land planner with the Natural Lands Trust.  As the author of Rural by Design and Growing Greener, he is the nationally recognized authority on conservation developments.  In visits to north Florida, Mr. Arendt has encouraged land owners and government officials to use conservation development techniques as a method of meeting growing housing demands while maintaining the rural character of the land.  His principles were incorporated in the design of Aylesbury Plantation.

 

First, Aylesbury’s planners identified the open space that they wanted to preserve, making sure that these spaces were interconnected.  They also were careful to preserve the sweeping rural landscape views from the highway.  The open space, consisting of fields, woods and 17 acres of wetlands, comprises 73 acres (66 percent) of Aylesbury Plantation’s 111 acres.  Then, the planners identified 47 home sites in trees and along ridges surrounding the open space, personally checking each one for view and home site suitability.  Next, they drew in the road alignments and located the amenities—nature trails, community garden, picnic park, playground, horse pasture, athletic field, etc.  Finally, the lot lines were set as shown on the accompanying site plan.  The average lot size, including internal roadways, is about 0.8 acres.

 

The planners wanted lots that were large enough to allow flexibility in building, but small enough for easy maintenance.  A major advantage of the conservation development concept is that homeowners have the enjoyment and shared ownership of expansive open space without the hassle of maintaining this space.  The open space maintenance is the responsibility of the homeowners’ association.

 

Moreover, studies have shown that homes in conservation developments appreciate faster than homes in traditional developments.