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U.S. NEWSMonday 4 April 2016

American Living:

Development based on Mormonism founder’s plan finds few fans

This Tuesday, March 29, 2016 photo shows a farm in Sharon, Vt. The farm was bought by the and most of the proceeds the 1960s.
NewVistas Foundation of Utah, which is planning a large-scale development based on the writ- are going into engineering “This is very free market.
ings of Mormonism founder Joseph Smith, who was born in Sharon. The foundation bought about studies for the project. You’ve got lots of delis all
900 acres in four towns near Smith’s birthplace and plans to buy more. Since the 1970s, Hall told over the place, just around
The Associated Press in an the corner,” Hall said. “It’s
(AP Photo/Lisa Rathke) interview, he has spent free-market, more city-
$100 million on engineer- type living that way; rural
LISA RATHKE that’s going to land on us ment and would include 24 ing and other research on living because you always
Associated Press and destroy what we have main buildings, small apart- the concept and plans to have gardens and a view
SHARON, Vt. (AP) — An built up over the last 200 ments (200 square feet per spend $100 million more, right there. So it’s a com-
obelisk soars into the sky years here,” said Randy person), rooftop green- with spinoff businesses such bination between dense
on a hill in central Vermont, Leavitt, of South Royalton, houses and other gardens as transformable walls for housing and rural.”
marking the birthplace of during a community meet- that would grow food, and the apartments and foam- What’s the attraction?
the founder of the Church ing with Hall by phone offices that could be con- flushing toilets. Hall, 69, said Surveys by the foundation
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Thursday evening. verted into hotel or meet- he doesn’t expect the Ver- show that 10 percent of the
Saints — and perhaps her- Hall said that he expected ing rooms. The community mont project to happen population would already
alding an immense, futuris- locals to be opposed but would be walkable and in his lifetime but possibly prefer to live in smaller
tic, utopia-like community hopes that as other such include enclosed “pod during the lifetime of his homes as long as they had
based on his papers. developments are built ways” for electric public daughter, who is president conveniences, Hall said. He
If a Mormon Utah business- and become successful, transit. of the family’s NewVista also cited a growing desire
man has his way, a de- residents will warm to the If all the development’s res- Foundation and plans to for locally raised food.
velopment would sprout idea. idents were new to tiny Ver- spend this summer in Ver- Buildings, land and equip-
nearby, albeit many years Hall’s family foundation mont, it would increase the mont working with profes- ment would be commu-
in the future, that includes is also pursuing NewVista state’s population by more sionals to manage the land nity-owned and leased
housing for 20,000 people, developments in Nevada, than 3 percent and qua- and homes. by individuals or families,
offices, gardens, 48 basket- China, India and Bhutan, druple the population of The foundation plans this but community members
ball courts and 48 Olympic- he said, but he would not the four small towns where year to start building eight would own their businesses,
size swimming pools. disclose the exact loca- he has bought land. apartments and then a vil- he said.
David Hall’s vision would tions. Hall’s father, a General lage with 80 apartments in The project would require
be one thing if it were pie “I already know that the Electric chemist, invented Provo, Utah. Within 15 years, environmental and com-
in the sky. But he has deep local people don’t want a process for making syn- he hopes to create similar munity impact reviews
pockets, 150 engineers this,” he told the crowd thetic diamonds that is developments throughout in Vermont, which Hall
working on the concept at the Tunbridge library. used for cutting, grinding, the United States and have believes would enable
and land deals proving “What I’m counting on is drilling and polishing in the one full community going his project, while some
he’s serious. His plan, the that over time people will electronics, computer and in 20 years. residents say they would
scope of which has never come to like it as they un- energy industries. Hall built While the communities quash it.
been seen in this largely ru- derstand it.” on that and became an are modeled after Smith’s So far, the foundation has
ral and mountainous area, It’s billed as an economi- expert in drilling technol- 1833 plans for the city of bought nearly 900 acres in
is creating concern. cally, ecologically and so- ogy. In September, he sold Zion to be built near Inde- the communities of Sharon,
“I feel like this is a bomb cially sustainable develop- his company, Novatek, pendence, Missouri, which Tunbridge, Strafford and
called for a rectangular Royalton and hopes to
grid with square plots, they patch together 4,100 more
will not be religiously exclu- acres over the next 30 to 50
sive, Hall said. years as people sell homes
The plans set out by Smith and farms. For now, he
resemble some other com- plans to lease the Vermont
munities of the time, espe- properties, which include
cially the Fourierite social- about a dozen homes.
ist communes, including Hall chose Vermont be-
Utopia, Ohio, and to some cause it’s Smith’s birth-
degree the Oneida Com- place and he recalls child-
munity, a religious com- hood trips to the memorial.
mune in New York, said “I’m interested in it just be-
Dona Brown, a history pro- cause it’s such a beauti-
fessor at the University of ful area and I’ve just had
Vermont. connection for so long,”
But the development won’t he said. “And the Joseph
be like the communes that Smith papers, not the reli-
sprang up in Vermont dur- gion, are the foundation of
ing the counterculture of the concept.”