I am looking to build out your exact idea. I live in a small community right now and it has the ability to morph into what you describe. I am looking into buying more land too. It's built in a circle and has an existing amount of people. I am familiar with Open Source Ecology. I am looking to find others (who are sane) to move the idea forward.
By the way, I live near that Open Source Ecology location. And I studied the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage model to learn how to live peacefully among others. They use a very healthy technique which is this: you live there for 6 months and then the people who already live there get to decide if they want you to live there or not. This is necessary to keep a group free of dangerous elements and those who would do harm, since the isolated nature of the group makes people more vulnerable. That system works well for them I believe, since most people who are not ready for such a commitment, end up leaving anyway. I followed one guy who was mentally unstable, and watched how he ended up leaving Dancing Rabbit because he felt he was not mentally able to deal with that kind of new life.