Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. is gifting the land development and building industry to solve many of the growth problems worldwide. LandMentor is a ‘System’ that blends technology with an education in advanced market proven land development planning and housing design methods.
What is LandMentor?
In the mid-1970’s Rick Harrison began developing software for land surveying and civil engineering to expedite tasks going from fieldwork to subdivision plats. His experience by 1975 was in land planning, surveying, civil engineering and land development.
By 1982 he collaborated with Hewlett Packard and founded Land Innovation, which became a leading civil/survey software developer for two decades.
In 1989 Rick Harrison Site Design (RHSD) was formed to discover new methods of design based on new forms of software. This led to innovation in land uses, land surveying, site engineering, development design and architecture.
Two decades ago, with Keith Willenson in charge of software, they began developing a new core technology to reinvent the growth industry.
Realizing software cannot change anything without an education to ‘think differently’ this new product could not have a separate educational component, nor could it be modular with separate components and options.
How LandMentor will improve the world’s growth
LandMentor was developed to bring ‘quality of growth’ and foster better design. It introduces an industry first – a software packaged with an education. For example, does Microsoft Word instantly make you a great author? Obviously, no. But what if it was packaged with a complete education in story telling?
LandMentor provides the tools and education to create exciting, more functional development with less economic and environmental impacts.
LandMentor’s ‘holistic’ education merges land surveying, site engineering, advanced land planning, architecture, 2D presentations and interactive 3D/VR that can be learned in a dedicated week or two. This eliminates the long learning curves (and costs) required of CAD and GIS.
Reducing (or eliminating) the dependence on CAD
LandMentor has no commands, and its patented graphic & video prompts make all tasks easier and more enjoyable.
LandMentor does not ‘data base’ which means it allows computers to do what they do best – compute. In LandMentor the drawing does not exist – only precision math. It is essentially the exact opposite of CAD. Every screen refresh LandMentor builds the drawing from scratch eliminating geometric mistakes using a CAD or GIS base engine.
The first ‘Surface Based’ solution
We live in a world of surfaces – not lines and curves, and those surfaces have environmental and economic impacts. LandMentor is the first ‘surface based’ solution that eliminates the need for hundreds (or thousands) of CAD layers.
LandMentor instantly reports surface impacts with easy-to-understand charts so designers can take action to reduce waste and cities can communicate the waste to the developer.
Changing the way the industry communicates
LandMentor ‘video gaming’ based interactive 3D is easily created from normal planning, surveying, and engineering tasks. Since most users today will be familiar with video gaming there is no learning curve.
LandMentor includes ‘plug & play’ VR headset support so users can transport themselves into a meta environment. In 2015, LandMentor was the first technology that used VR headsets in public meetings for planning and council approval. This was in Springfield, Kansas for GDR Development on a tract of land that Lady Gaga’s music video ‘You and I’ was filmed on.
But the most important beneficiaries will be the future generations that will have increased living standards with less economic and environmental impacts.
LandMentor’s holistic approach includes
- Land surveying includes import coordinate and raw data from total stations and export to field by descriptions
- Integrated site engineering, street & utility design, & earthwork
- Advanced land planning and land use methods to create better neighborhoods and more successful commercial growth
- How to blend interior spaces with surrounding exterior open spaces – even on more affordable production housing to increase value & livability
- Precision city mapping, important because most GIS maps are not precise
…..And much more
Creating a More Collaborative Industry
The sad state of the consulting industry is the lack of communication and collaboration between the four pillars of consulting services:
- Land Surveying
- Civil Engineering
- Land Planning
- Architecture
This is because there is no common knowledge base, no common understanding of how one’s action can destroy another’s intention. This creates common conflicts between planning, engineering, and architecture.
Currently no University teaches a common knowledge base. This is why we included it in the education and training of LandMentor.
No Charge – to encourage change worldwide
The development of LandMentor was entirely funded by the profits of Rick Harrison Site Design Studio. The software development and patents are paid for, and not encumbered by investors to demand immediate profits. Neighborhoods Innovations, LLC. (spin-off from RHSD) gifts LandMentor to the world so that the industry can finally solve many problems facing growth, from both regulatory and design perspectives.
Over 1,500 developments were designed with LandMentor (approx. $100 billion in construction), it’s time to distribute the technology and education out into the marketplace to as many end users as possible.
LandMentor does have several patents to prevent other software firms from replicating its advantages.
LandMentor Registration
Existing LandMentor users prior to this gift paid between $4,995.00 a seat and $50,000 a seat. These are permanent licenses and will never have any extra fees. The new users of LandMentor, will need to register the software. After that it will occasionally query the server to make sure it’s a valid license within the fee use period. It will also report how much it’s being used.
Rewarding Higher Usage
While LandMentor will never report what it’s being used on or for, it does report back to Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. how often it is used. Those that have higher activity levels will have higher levels of educational materials sent to them and be offered discounts on trainings.
What’s Included – and what’s not?
After July 1st 2022, all that’s needed is to download the ‘system’ from www.landmentor.com and dedicate the time (about a week or two) to go through the included initial training (on video and PowerPoint with example files) as well as through the integrated textbooks under the Help menu.
Some extra cost options like printed material, support and training are also available.
- The LandMentor software technology is free until the end of 2023.
- If the LandMentor system goes viral with over 100,000 users, another free year of use will be added.
- When LandMentor does revert to a subscription model, the more end users, the less cost it will be.
- During this free time period, all updates and upgrades and video trainings via the website and YouTube will be available at no extra charge.
- The education included that provides a wealth of information for the career success for those that use LandMentor.
LandMentor as a conduit for other technologies
LandMentor was designed to be a translation tool between other hardware and software technologies specific to real estate development including precision mapping and military applications. These include field instruments, Autodesk and other CAD, ESRI, LiDAR and so on.
Hardware Requirements
We purposely developed LandMentor on older hardware! Why? To make sure it can run on somewhat older technology as well as the latest computers. This is not to say it will run on your grand-pappy’s Commodore computer, but it’s pretty diverse on what it will run on. It might run OK on an Apple with a Microsoft PC Emulator (maybe), otherwise – pretty much PC computers. It was also developed for ‘out-of-the-box’ PC’s and we understand many are on a restricted company network. For those systems, you will need the network administrator to install and set it up.
User Testimonials
From Michael Shamsie of the LandMark Group (a Civil Engineer user).
From a Planning Commission member:
“Your submittal and presentation set a new standard for future applicants”
From a Planning Commission member in Missouri:
“The 3D model helps us with the transformation from paper to the reality of what the development will look like”
From Steve Wilhelmy, Real Estate Broker in Minnesota and Texas
As a commercial broker that specializes in listing land for residential development, I am a big fan of the Land Mentor system. The ease of use and ability to generate quality 2D and 3D concept plans to include in the marketing packages really helps potential buyers visualize the property’s potential.
The methods and technology have won many awards:
LandMentor was also chosen accepted into the CleanTech Open in 2012.
The methods and/or the technology has been featured in almost every industry specific publication – in print and online.
Neighborhood Innovations, LLC. has been involved in PlanningTank.com as well as LandSurveyorsUnited.com both addressing international issues.
Example Developments designed with LandMentor:
AL: Huntsville www.rhsdplanning.com/uploads/Lifecenters_Beta.mp4
CO: Steamboat www.landmentor.com/SteamboatSpringsAirpark.mp4
FL: Trasona www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6MGF17Z398 (drone)
FL: The Reserve www.rhsdplanning.com/uploads/ReserveAtPenzance.mp4
IN: Brownstone www.rhsdplanning.com/uploads/PulteAvonBrownstone.mp4
KY: Frankfort www.rhsdplanning.com/uploads/The_Chandler.mp4
Complete document available at: ‘Land Mentor’ Land Development now free_document
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