>I've seen some examples of that. My wife and I intend to put up an energy efficient, and pretty much utility independant house as a replacement to our current one once we decide this house needs to go (still a few years off). The nice thing about living in the middle of nowhere on a bunch of land is we can do that w/o zoning/neighbors/etc getting in the way.

By all means you should start a homeowners association for your area, then establish a few services you won't use but still pay them, then have them impose ridiculous rules on you, so that the value of your home goes up and so does the tax. You should do the dues to raise the value of your home - it's not as if you want to live in it, you want to sell it, so it has to look nice on the pictures, not as if anyone lives in it.