Docs · Land

Land and plots

How a plot is held, what it costs in tez, what you get, how terms renew and what happens to your work if you let it go. Every number on this page is read from the price table the island charges by.

A plot is a renewable tenure: the right to build and show your work on one numbered place, for a paid term. It is not ownership of land, not a token, not a share in the project and not an investment. Terms must be renewed, resale is slowed down on purpose and the price of tez moves. Do not buy a plot expecting a profit. Read the terms before you pay.

Plots, sizes and cells

The mainland has 67 artist plots: 31 of 16 m, 26 of 32 m, 5 of 48 m, 5 of 80 m. A plot is square and made of 16 m cells: a 16 m plot is one cell, 32 m is 2 × 2 = 4 cells, 48 m is 9 and 80 m is 25. Cells matter because many limits are counted per cell (limits). Each plot has a street entrance, its front.

Streets, squares, the park, the beach, the promenade, the Palazzo and every other common place are never for sale.

Zones

The price depends on a plot's size and its zone. A plot in two zones pays the higher one.

• Centre · by the Palazzo ×1.5 — the plot's centre is within 105 m of the Palazzo delle Arti
• Sea view ×1.5 — the plot looks over the sea
• Town ×1 — every other plot in the village
• Countryside ×0.75 — more than 250 m from the Palazzo and without a sea view

Prices

• Purchase prices are round: size × zone, rounded to the nearest 5 ꜩ, and never below 30 ꜩ.
• The purchase price covers the first 3-month term. When it ends you renew, one term at a time, for about 20 % of the purchase price (whole tez).
• More plots cost more: a wallet's plots are priced ×1, ×2, ×4 in the order they were claimed, to buy and to renew. One wallet holds at most 3, and at most 2 that touch each other (by an edge or a corner), so nobody walls off a street.
• Network fees are paid by your wallet, on top.

What the purchase includes

• The right to build and publish on that plot, for the paid term, with or without an invitation: buying makes your wallet a creator.
• The plot's publishing allowance (25 MB a cell up to 100 MB, see limits), your gallery sign by the door, your listing on the maps and in the gazette.
• It does not include: ownership, a token, any share of revenue, or rights over neighbours, the street or common land.

How paying works

1. In the plot picker (Create › A place on the mainland) or the town map, choose a free plot and press Buy. You see the price, the term and the zone.
2. Tick that you have read the terms. The quote is valid for 20 minutes.
3. Your wallet pays the island's treasury directly, in one operation you approve. The tez go from your wallet to the treasury on chain; they never pass through us otherwise.
4. The island reads the operation back from the Tezos chain and records your plot once it has 2 confirmations on top of its block.

Payments are final. If a payment cannot be applied (someone else's payment for the same plot was verified first, the amount was wrong, the price changed while your wallet was open), nothing is recorded and the host returns the tez by hand. The island never sends refunds automatically. Never pay a plot by sending tez yourself; use only the Buy button.

Terms, renewal, grace and reversion

• A term is 3 calendar months (UTC). Renew from My plots in your account, or from the plot picker.
• A renewal always starts where your paid term ends, so renewing early loses nothing. Your paid time may reach at most 5 terms beyond today.
• If a term ends without renewal, you keep the plot for a grace period of 60 days, during which you can still renew. During grace you cannot add storage.
• After grace the plot reverts to the town and is offered again.
• A plot assigned by the host before sales opened has no term until the host gives it one or its holder renews; it does not lapse meanwhile.

Paying a year at once

When you buy or renew, choose 3 months or 1 year. A year is 4 terms for the price of 3: about 25 % off the term fees. At purchase the purchase price counts as one of the 3: 42 ꜩ for a 16 m town plot's first year, instead of 30 ꜩ + 3 × 6 ꜩ. The extra-plot factor and every other rule still apply. A year cannot be added when the plot is already paid more than one term ahead.

Extra storage

If your plot needs more than its base allowance, add extra storage under My plots, in add-ons of 25 MB for 5 ꜩ each per term, up to what visitors can still load in full.

• Storage is paid until the plot's paid term ends and renews with the plot (a year of it also costs 3 terms). Zone and extra-plot factors do not apply to it.
• It goes with the plot when the plot is resold.
• If it is not renewed, the plot falls back to its base allowance: nothing is deleted and what is published stays up, but a new version must fit the base again.
• The island can refuse new storage when its own ceiling is reached (it stores 5 GB for free, plus what is paid, never above 50 GB).

Resale

• After you have held a plot for 90 days, you may list it at a price you choose, between 1 and 100,000 ꜩ.
• The buyer pays in one operation: 95 % to you and a 5 % marketplace fee to the treasury.
• The buyer inherits the rest of your paid term, the plot's storage and the same obligations, and starts their own 90 days before they can resell.
• Your published gallery does not go with the plot. It leaves the map; its files are kept.

Reservations, the drop and gifts

• The drop. The 10 plots facing the Palazzo delle Arti are reserved for the drop's artists and are not for sale. The host gives them for their first term (1); after it they renew like any other plot in their zone.
• Reservations. The host can hold any free plot back from sale and from gifts (for the drop, for a civic use or another reason). A reserved plot shows as Reserved. Reserving never takes a plot from someone who holds it.
• Gifts. The host can give one wallet a gift voucher, optionally limited to a largest size or a zone. That wallet chooses any free, unreserved plot within the limits and claims it at 0 ꜩ with its first term paid (Claim my gift plot · 0 tez). After that it renews like any plot. A gift can be revoked until it is used.

What happens to your work

Losing a plot (by not renewing, by resale, or by the host taking it back) never deletes what you made. Your published gallery is taken off the map, but its files are kept. Your drafts stay on your device and you can export them from the editor at any time; the host can send you a copy of your published gallery. NFTs are never held by the site: they stay in your wallet.

Sales open only when the host opens them and a treasury is set. Today buyers are invited wallets; opening sales to every wallet is a separate switch the host has not necessarily turned on. The plot picker says which applies.