Bureau 8: Land and Utilities
The eighth bureau in the community is the Land and Utilities Bureau. It is part of the Process and Property Department, which also contains the Regulatory, Data, and Business Development bureaus.
The core objective of the Land and Utilities Bureau is to provide the community with access to land, raw materials, and utilities that it needs to operate. The three agencies in the bureau, Cropland & Pastures, Community Land & Utilities, and Raw Materials & Transport agencies, have specific roles that synergize to make this possible.
The bureau’s agencies, just as with other agencies in the community, receive capital from the Capital Bank Agency (agency 8), and loans from whichever bank an agency shares a column with. For instance, the Cropland & Pastures Agency receives the loans it needs to buy land from the Industrial Bank Agency (agency 7).
The agencies are expected to run at a profit, which they earn by offering chargeable services to participants. They use their profits to improve their services, pay the Capital Bank a return on its investment, and repay any loans taken from the bank agencies.
Duties of Land & Utilities Bureau Agencies
The duties of the three agencies in the Land & Utilities Bureau can be summarized as follows:
| Cropland & Pastures (agency 22) | Community Land and Utilities (agency 23) | Raw Materials & Transport (agency 24) |
| Acquire land for farmland and pastures on the community’s behalf | Acquire land for community buildings, and lease it to relevant agencies to develop | Help process rights and claims to raw materials extraction |
| Facilitate farming on the community land | Facilitate provision of utilities to participants | Facilitate access to raw materials through leases and rights to businesses |
| Monitor farming methods to ensure compliance with standards | Training participants to optimize utilities’ use | Facilitate transport outside the community |
| Training farmers and contractors | Monitor resources extraction | |
| Training |
Shared responsibilities of agencies in the bureau
The three agencies in the Land and Utilities Bureau collectively guide the community’s land use. The community is founded on the premise that land use can be optimized for sustainability, extracting resources from the environment while providing for its regeneration.
The bureau helps ease the community’s access to resources and interconnectivity. For instance, the bureau’s agencies handle utilities, controlling their use, as well as transport within and outside the community.
Executive presidencies and boards
Each agency in the Land and Utilities Bureau is served by a four-member executive presidency. Each president represents a specific demographic: married men (A), married women (B), single women (C), and single men (D). However, each president serves the whole community, rather than their demographic alone. The presidencies serving the three agencies come together to form the Land and Utilities Bureau Board, a 12-member body that advises individual presidents and presidencies and acts as an additional check and balance beyond the presidencies.
Additionally, each president belongs to a demographic presidency. Three presidents who serve the same demographic on a board form a demographic presidency, which helps in articulating issues that cut across the board and are specific to the demographic.
Executive presidencies set strategy and draw up operating policies. They also set up and monitor their respective agencies’ automated systems. The bureau does not have operational presidencies to implement the agencies’ strategy and policies. Instead, they depend on branch presidencies (captains) for instances where participants are unable to get the help they need from agencies’ automated systems.