While I was on vacation, our estate owner set for immediate open sale the new Alpine Meadow parcels created by the removal of the original Monastery. This was a good faith misunderstanding between her and I: we have been trying to phase desirable properties into the market with pre-announcements, to be fair, as opposed to a first-to-spot-it approach ... or worse, a system where only insiders know what's available. So far, our deliberate pre-announcement program, for desirable land, seems to have worked. See the Altstadt example here: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2273
We also have been working on, but have not completed, a reservation system for land sales to comply with NL 9-3. That law permits CDS to improve the sloppy and sometimes favoritism-driven system we had. However, the new system to permit transparent pre-registration is not completed. At the same time, our PIO Rose Springvale, who has been providing essential help with land sales promotion, collects requests from both existing and new prospective citizens for land. I expected to put the eight new parcels, on two sims, generated by the Monastery move, on sale gradually, to permit us to give all past requesters a chance to bid. (From our successful event programs, during the past year, we usually have several people interested in joining us as new citizens, at any given time.) As a policy matter, there's nothing wrong with us keeping a queue (though we much comply with NL 9-3 and other CDS law); and there's nothing wrong with rolling out sales with advance notice, to give everyone an equal chance to buy.
Unfortunately, by bad coincidence, the land freed up on the very day that Rose and I both were first out on vacation, and so she and I and Sudane were unable to coordinate, and all the land was immediately put up for "open yellow map" sale. Timo Gufler bought one of the parcels before I even knew they were on sale. As there were several others also in line, I asked Sudane to stop the sale; I was able to get in contact with Timo from my vacation location, and to his credit, Timo and I were able to work out a solution that was satisfactory to all directly affected parties.
(By the way, for those with an interest in the "legal" issues, although they are moot now: (a) I expect that Timo would have had the better claim under our current law, if he chose not to compromise, based on what I now know, in this specific case; but (b) that does not necessarily mean that every yellow-map land sale is valid. For example, a person could buy CDS land in a sale, but exceed their maximum permitted land holdings under the CDS covenants, and would be forced to yield that sale or some other parcel.)
All's well that ends well, but this does remind us of the need for a new system. When I joined CDS several years ago, land was rare, listings were either out of date or nonexistent, and grumbling ran high. To some, land seemed locked up in a few hands; we could not always find room for newcomers, and there were complaints (apologies to some of our former officials) that the more attractive properties seemed to pass in and out of government very quickly, without citizens knowing of its availability. I have no views nor data on what actually occurred back then; my point only is that, as with Timo's situation, it wasn't always sufficiently clear to all stakeholders.
As we discussed with the CDS RA, we've experimented with scripted land listing and sale devices this terms. I still think that there are better transparent methods possible for us. But most of the energy that might have gone into a new system, this last few months, has been invested instead in the double roll-outs of the Monastery sim and Al-Andalus estate merger. So NL 9-3 remains an opportunity for next term's CDS administration to improve our system. I hope that we as a community choose to do so.
Regards JP