Source
https://www.earthsong.org.nz/resources/documents — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Summary
The founding legal and financial contract behind Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood (Ranui, West Auckland) — the agreement, signed 18 October 1999, between the individual members of the Waitakere Eco-Neighbourhood Cohousing Project (“the Group”) and Cohousing New Zealand Limited (“the Company”), the resident-owned company incorporated on 22 March 1999 to buy the Ranui land and develop the units. It sets out how ~$1.6 million of member equity is raised (by loans, guarantees and unit-purchase deposits), how decisions are made (a consensus “Group Decision Making Process” backed by a deliberately anti-concentration share-weighted vote), and the rules for withdrawal, expulsion, default, wind-up and dispute resolution across ~30 planned units. It is the legal/financial backbone of the resident-led development story that the Earthsong case documents on the ground — the documentary counterpart to the Interviewee account (Interview VI [INT_006]) and the staged capital costs (OT_098). Its value to the thesis is as a concrete NZ example of how a cohousing group encodes “equal voice, unequal capital” and holds a voluntary community financially together through binding governance design.
Key thesis insights
- Consensus-first governance with an anti-capture weighted-vote backstop. All substantive decisions run through the Group Decision Making Process (consensus); only if consensus fails within the shorter of 10 days or two meetings does a share-weighted vote apply (cl 8.2–8.3). The fallback vote is engineered against concentration: one vote per share, one share per
1,000** loaned, but each individual's vote is **capped at 24%** regardless of how much they contributed, decisions need a **75% supermajority**, and quorum is 25% of eligible persons holding ≥50% of shares (cl 4.4, 8.3). Directors' unilateral powers are deliberately narrow — no expenditure above **1,000 per item, no changes to the agreed design or project timeframe (cl 8.1). A rare NZ documentary example of how a cohousing group reconciles egalitarian decision-making with unequal capital contribution. OT_141 - A wholly resident-financed development-company model. ~**
1.6 million** of "named equity capital" is raised from members themselves — via loans (a1 share + one vote per1,000 lent), guarantees (a1 share per5,000** guaranteed), and unit-purchase deposits — on top of a **2,000 member seed contribution (cl 4 principle, 4.1, 4.4, 4.8). The Company builds and then sells units to members. This documents, verbatim, the 100%-resident-funded, sell-at-cost structure that Interview VI [INT_006] and OT_098 describe — and whose lack of a resale-to-commons clawback is an interviewee’s stated main regret. OT_141 - Commitment lock-in that prioritises collective viability over the individual. Contributions, once committed, stay committed until wind-up: “the viability of the Project must take precedence over the needs of individual contributors” (cl 5 principle). A member cannot simply exit — withdrawal triggers a cascade of replacement-finding windows (pre-emptive offer to shareholders → other members within a month → six further months to find an outsider who must first become a member), with the $2,000 seed money forfeit until all units settle (cl 5.1–5.4). A documented governance mechanism for holding a voluntary community financially together through the multi-year build. OT_141
- Explicit tax, default and dispute safeguards around the social contract. Any member who is a “property developer” must disclose it and is barred from a shareholding large enough to make other members “associated persons” under the Income Tax Act 1994 (cl 4.7); default interest runs at 12% pa above the Westpac Trust domestic lending rate (cl 14.1); disputes follow a graded ladder — Group Decision Making Process → mediation → arbitration under the Arbitration Act 1996 (cl 25–27). The Second (Returns) Schedule prices patient capital: pre-22-March-1999 member contributions returned at 100%, later ones at 6% pa above the Westpac rate, and loans up to $30,000 on a tapering 6%→4%→0% schedule, non-compounding. Shows the formal legal scaffolding a NZ cohousing group needed to wrap around an otherwise consensus-based, trust-based community. OT_141
- A dated founding-era primary for the Earthsong timeline. The agreement anchors the case chronology in signed detail: company incorporated 22 Mar 1999, Ranui land conditionally purchased 15 Mar 1999 and due to settle 26 Nov 1999, ~30 units planned (cl 7.1), a $60,000 progress payment on 1 Jul 1999, resource consent to be applied for by 31 Jan 2000, construction from Oct 2000, all units to settle by 31 Dec 2001. It is the legal/financial origin point behind the ~15-year resident-led development recorded in the Earthsong case (Interview VI [INT_006], LIT_018, OT_098). OT_141
Research targets
None. No new documents to retrieve or research gaps identified. The companion founding-era instruments referenced by this agreement (the Initial Organising Agreement, Membership Agreement, Trust Deed, Body Corporate Rules, and Project Information booklet/Design Brief) come from the same Earthsong document collection and are ingested as their own separate sources, so no retrieval target is raised for them.
Notes
Primary legal document — the actual signed 1999 Cohousing Agreement, read verbatim via pdftotext -layout. Prepared for the Earthsong website in September 2010 (from a MS Word original; PDF metadata author “Andrew”; cover carries an un-named Auckland barristers/solicitors firm). 31 pp: 29 clauses plus five schedules (First = Contributions; Second = Returns; Third = Project Information list; Fourth = Loan Agreement form; Fifth = Agreement for Sale and Purchase form).
data_quality: high, not verified. Every figure cited above traces verbatim to the raw, but per the corpus definition (model_design.md §2, verified = corroborated by ≥1 independent source) this is a single authoritative primary read once. Its financing/sell-at-cost structure is independently corroborated by Interview VI [INT_006] and OT_098; its specific governance thresholds (24% vote cap, 75% supermajority) are unique to it and uncorroborated. high is the corpus-consistent, honest call.
Template/website-copy caveat. This is a signed-form copy readied for public display: the individual party names (parties 2–29), the Land legal description (Lot/DP/CT and area), and the First Schedule contribution amounts per member are left blank. None of the substantive figures relied on above sit in those blanks — the equity total (1.6M), member contribution (2,000), share/loan ratios (1,000; 5,000), vote thresholds (24%/75%; 25%/50% quorum), directors’ cap ($1,000), default rate (12% pa over Westpac) and the entire Second (Returns) Schedule are all present verbatim in the body/schedules.
context: thesis → ingested shallow (Summary + Key thesis insights, no key_claims block). The document is governance/finance evidence for the cohousing / community-resilience thesis argument, not an NI SSI/EDT calibration source. It does, however, materially inform the Earthsong case (context:both) — a governance-provenance contribution to that case page.
⚠ Feeds. Frontmatter is set to feeds: [cases/earthsong_ranui], matching the sibling Earthsong OT convention (OT_078/092/093/094/098/138/139/140 all feed the earthsong_ranui case page). This source contributes a founding governance/finance paragraph to the case page. The feed is a case-page contribution, not an NI SSI/EDT calculation input — this governance/finance primary has none.
Connections
Links to
Cases (1): Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood
Referenced by