Often there will be no land use taxes if you build a house on your land. Don't let a lack of money keep you from building? Do it with strawclay! I wrote the expert about this.
DEAR TIV: The Clay soil in my yard is hard as
cement after El nino rains. Knives
bounce off it. Shovel can't pierce a dune. Woe
is me for moving here.
But you're telling me I can mix straw with it,
pour it into FORMS and
let it dry into building bricks? What an idea?
Clay/straw houses are
just SOIL poured into plywood forms?
"Anita, There are a large number of building techniques that use
earth. Some are traditional, like strawclay; some new, like
earth-ships made from tires packed with dirt; some are updated
versions of traditional methods, like adobe with added stabilizers
so it will work in wet climates.
Strawclay is mostly straw packed into forms. There are also
techniques that are mostly dirt either packed while only damp
to poured almost like concrete. Wattle and daub is an other
traditional infil for post and beam. It uses a woven layer
of sticks (willow is traditional) and is covered in mud.
Take almost any soil and amend it with cement, lime or
sometimes even an oil like linseed oil and it becomes a
stable building material. Cover the outside with a stucco
of either cement or lime and it is weatherproof enough for
any climate in the world.