Community Development & Regenerative Land Planning
Take raw land to an entitled, governed, financed regenerative community: reading a site at scale, land use law and water rights, choosing a legal ownership structure, master planning, community-scale infrastructure, governance design and development phasing.
What you'll be able to do
- Assess raw land at community rather than building scale
- Navigate zoning, subdivision and water rights
- Choose a legal and ownership structure deliberately
- Design governance that survives the founders
Syllabus
8 parts · 16 lessons · 68 quiz questions · ≈3.3 hours of reading · sign in to open lessons
Part A THE REGENERATIVE COMMUNITY
- 1 What Makes a Community Regenerative 13 min · 4 q
Part B READING THE LAND
- 2 Site Assessment — Topography and Hydrology 11 min · 4 q
- 3 Solar, Wind, Soils and Ecology 13 min · 5 q
Part C LAW, WATER RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP
- 4 Zoning and Land Use Regulation 10 min · 4 q
- 5 Water Rights 8 min · 4 q
- 6 Legal Entity Structures 10 min · 4 q
Part D MASTER PLANNING
- 7 Zones and Sectors 10 min · 4 q
- 8 Movement, Clusters and Open Space 11 min · 4 q
Part E INFRASTRUCTURE AND HOUSING
- 9 Infrastructure Systems Integration 15 min · 5 q
- 10 Housing Typologies and Density 11 min · 4 q
Part F GOVERNANCE
- 11 Governance Structures 15 min · 5 q
- 12 Governing Documents 8 min · 4 q
Part G ECONOMICS AND FINANCING
- 13 Economic Models 11 min · 4 q
- 14 Financing Community Development 8 min · 4 q
Part H PHASING AND STEWARDSHIP
- 15 Phased Development Strategy 12 min · 4 q
- 16 Resilience and Long-Term Stewardship 15 min · 5 q
Ref Appendices
- A Legal Entity Comparison
- B Community Design Checklist
- C Glossary
Prerequisites
Recommended: Courses 1, 8, 9, 10. Level 1 core track ideal but not required.
Assessment
Module quizzes: one per lesson, 3–5 multiple choice questions.
Final examination:
| Area | Weight |
|---|---|
| Site assessment and land reading | 20% |
| Law, water rights and legal structures | 25% |
| Master planning | 15% |
| Infrastructure and housing | 15% |
| Governance | 15% |
| Economics, financing and phasing | 10% |
Practical submission: a community development framework for a real or specified parcel — site analysis across all six domains, a water rights assessment, a recommended legal entity with reasoning, a master plan showing zones and sectors, an infrastructure strategy, a governance structure with decision-making model, an economic model with identified revenue streams, and a phasing plan with decision points.
About this course
Course competency
On completing this course you can take raw land to an entitled, governed, financed regenerative community — reading a site, navigating land use law and water rights, selecting a legal ownership structure, producing a master plan, integrating community-scale infrastructure, designing governance, and phasing development over a decade.
Why this course exists
Everything else in the Level 1 track builds a building. This builds the thing buildings sit inside.
The systems in Courses 8, 9 and 10 all get better at community scale. A shared cistern buffers a dry spell better than a dozen household ones. A shared battery bank can be sized for the statistical reality that not every house peaks at once. A constructed wetland serving fifteen households outperforms fifteen septic systems on less land. Scale is not just more of the same — it changes what is possible.
And it is where the Academy's mission actually lands. One dignified, healthy, affordable house helps one household. The structures in this course — community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, shared infrastructure, stewardship endowments — are how that house stays affordable for the household after next.
What makes this course different
This is the only course in the catalogue where the legal, financial and social design matter as much as the physical design. A community that cannot make decisions together will fail with perfect solar orientation. A community whose land appreciates into unaffordability has failed regardless of its water balance.
This course is not a substitute for legal counsel. Every community development project should work with a licensed attorney familiar with local land use law. The purpose here is to make you an informed collaborator with your legal advisors and a more capable advocate for your project through regulatory processes.
Course structure
| Part | Lessons | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1 | The regenerative community |
| B | 2–3 | Reading the land |
| C | 4–6 | Law, water rights and ownership |
| D | 7–8 | Master planning |
| E | 9–10 | Infrastructure and housing |
| F | 11–12 | Governance |
| G | 13–14 | Economics and financing |
| H | 15–16 | Phasing and long-term stewardship |
| — | Appendices | Entity comparison · design checklist · glossary |
The public page for this course has the same syllabus without your progress on it - that is the one to send to somebody else.