Source
https://www.earthsong.org.nz/resources/documents — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Context: both · Earthsong case evidence (planning/consenting) · no NI model cell
Summary
A first-principles quantitative analysis prepared by Cohousing New Zealand Ltd (the resident-owned company that developed Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood) in March 2002, as the evidence appendix supporting the community’s formal objection to the reserves financial contribution assessed on its resource consent by Waitakere City Council. Because the district plan offered a pay-or-provide choice (Citywide Rule 1.5(f)(ii)) but defined neither the purpose of reserves nor any measure of on-site provision, the document constructs its own assessment framework: ten defining reserves criteria (Extent, Position, Proximity, Shape factor, Openness, Green, Ecology, Recreational amenity, Publicness, Cultural), five quantitative open-space measures (methods 1/1b/2/2b/2c), and a CAD-measured land-use comparison of four Henderson-area developments (Earthsong, Coroglen, Westwood Condominiums, and Edwin Freeman Place as a low-density control). The headline result: Earthsong dedicates 72% of its analysed site to open space with 125 m²/household of dedicated usable common open space, roughly 4 to 9 times the comparable medium-density developments, exceeding the 4 ha/1000-people planning guide on-site. The document closes by critiquing the 6%-of-lot-value contribution formula and the plan’s implicit council-as-sole-reserve-provider paradigm. The objection this analysis supported succeeded: the Council subsequently reduced the contribution rate from 6% to 3.5% of lot value (its response letter is held as OT_240).
Key claims
- claim: "Method, first principles because the plan is silent: 'The district plan has relatively little to say about open space provision. Thus we found it necessary to approach the issue of reserves provision from first principles. Only by examining the purpose of reserves contributions, can the degree to which a development has mitigated impacts on-site be reasonably established.' [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 1.1 Methodology, p.1"
- claim: "The district plan's pay-or-provide basis for reserves contributions: 'the plan offers developers the choice of either paying or providing: “the level of contributions shall take into account… the extent to which on site measures are proposed or provided which achieve the purpose of the particular contribution…” (Citywide Rule 1.5(f)(ii)).' [verified verbatim; the inner quote is the document quoting the Waitakere City district plan]"
source_location: "Section 1.1 Methodology, p.1"
- claim: "Ten first-principles reserves criteria: 'From a reading of the legislation, relevant plans, and a measure of common sense we arrived at ten key defining reserves criteria' - A Extent, B Position, C Proximity (access), D Shape factor, E Openness (spatial), F Green (aesthetic), G Ecology, H Recreational amenity, I Publicness, J Cultural. Under A Extent: 'Two sources (ARC 1992, LGA 1974) recommend a minimum quota of 4 ha/1000 people.' [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 2.0 Assessing provision, pp.1-2"
- claim: "Case-study set ('the sites chosen are medium density developments, developed recently, in the general Henderson area'): Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood - 'Developer: Cohousing NZ Ltd / Date built: 2002 / Location: 457 Swanson Rd, Ranui / Lots: 32'; Coroglen (Universal Homes, 2000, Amesbury Way, Ranui, 99 lots); Westwood Condominiums (Bridgecorp Holdings, 2001, Westwood Ho Rd, Kelston, 210 lots); Edwin Freeman Place (developer unknown, circa 1980s, Ranui, 20 lots incl cross lease - studied 'out of interest, as local non-medium density development'). [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 2.1 Case studies, pp.3-4"
- claim: "Earthsong measured land budget (CAD, 32 units, analysed extent): Total area 12,902 m2 (403 m2/hh, 100%); Carspace 1,593 m2 (50 m2/hh, 12%); Built footprint 2,030 m2 (63 m2/hh, 16%); Open space method 1 (all open space) 9,280 m2 (290 m2/hh, 72%); method 1b 9,636 m2 (301); method 2 (dedicated usable common, DUC) 3,658 m2 (114); method 2b (DUC incl common house) 4,014 m2 (125); method 2c (incl nodes) 4,646 m2 (145). Density (gross) 24.8 units/ha. [verified verbatim against the worksheet and Table 1]"
source_location: "Working arithmetic: Eco-Neighbourhood, p.10; Table 1 Summary of area usage per household, p.14"
- claim: "'One of the most notable results above is the minimal amount of space devoted to vehicles on the Earthsong site: Earthsong is about a third of Coroglen; and a quarter of Edwin Freeman.' (car space 50 m2/hh vs Coroglen 131 and Edwin Freeman 186; Westwood's 23 excludes its unmeasured underground parking) [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 2.6 Comparison analysis, p.14; Table 1, p.14"
- claim: "'Even without discussing which of the open space measures should be used it is clear that Earthsong, in comparison with Coroglen, has in fact provided more open space by any definition, anywhere from 13 to 368 % more. The same applies for the Westwood case anywhere from 793 to 1015% more. As these three medium density developments are comparable in time and place, this data alone suggests WCC have not been even handed.' [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 2.6 Comparison analysis, p.15"
- claim: "Recommended measure and headline result (Table 2, open space method 2b, m2/hh): Earthsong 125; Coroglen 31 (Earthsong = 403%); Westwood 14 (893%); Edwin Freeman 29 (431%). 'What is interesting about the above table is that if 4 ha/1000 people is any guide to open space provision, then Earthsong has in fact already provided in excess of this amount on site (125x1000/2.4=5.2 ha/1000).' [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 2.7 Comparison conclusion, Table 2, p.16"
- claim: "Non-vested common open space achieves the reserve function: 'While the District plan is vague on this matter it seems clear that actual vesting is not required to achieve the effect of a reserve. Talking to council staff it is plain that enough medium density examples exist to show that non vested reserves have been recognised as achieving the effect.' Supported by 'the semi-superceded s285 of the LGA': 'Where the subdividing owner makes provision for the setting aside within the land on the scheme plan of open space for the use only of persons to live within that land, the council may take into account the whole or part of the areas to be set aside…' [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 2.7 Comparison conclusion, pp.16-17"
- claim: "Critique of the 6%-of-lot-value contribution formula: 'While the 6% of developed lot value policy bears a passing resemblance to the cost of providing reserves in general, it bears no firm correlation to on-site provision whatsoever.' and 'The only real impetus created by a 6% by lot value policy is for developers to try to reduce the value of the lot, a rather self-defeating impetus we suggest when considering any of the above objectives.' [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 3.2 A better way to assess provision, p.18"
- claim: "Conclusion: 'the Eco-Neighbourhood development has made substantial efforts to minimise adverse impacts on reserves by indeed “providing measures on-site” to the degree of over 5 ha/1000 people. We understand that the citywide average provision of reserves is 6.6 ha/1000 people. If we take this level of provision as a ‘zero effect’ baseline, then assessing the Eco-Neighbourhood project at the maximum amount can only be seen as grossly incongruent and unjust.' [verified verbatim]"
source_location: "Section 4.0 Conclusion, p.19"Relevance
Regulatory/consenting evidence (context: both). The community-side evidence in the corpus’s only documented instance of an NZ intentional community formally contesting a consent condition: the objection to the reserves financial contribution on the Earthsong consent. The argument structure is the valuable part. First, the district plan’s own pay-or-provide clause (Citywide Rule 1.5(f)(ii)) makes on-site provision a legitimate substitute for a cash contribution. Second, because the plan defined neither the purpose of reserves nor a measure of on-site provision, the community had to construct a first-principles assessment framework (ten criteria, five quantitative measures) itself. Third, applying that framework showed Earthsong provided several times the common open space of comparable medium-density developments. It documents the burden of proof falling on a non-standard development: the community produced a CAD-measured comparative analysis of four sites to win a reduction that a conventional developer would simply have paid. It also names a structural bias, the plan’s implicit assumption of council as sole reserve provider, under which commonly owned open space (Unit Titles Act land) struggles to be recognised even where it demonstrably performs the reserve function. OT_239
Case evidence (Earthsong). The quantified land-use budget of a real NZ cohousing site: 12% car space, 16% built footprint, 72% open space over the analysed extent, 290 m²/hh of total open space and 125 m²/hh of dedicated usable common open space including the common house. These are the hard numbers behind the case page’s car-parking-to-the-periphery and shared-open-space design features, with a comparator set (Coroglen, Westwood, Edwin Freeman) showing how far the cohousing layout deviates from standard medium-density practice. No NI model cell consumes these figures; they are case/design evidence. OT_239
Research targets
None. The document resolves a question rather than opening one.
Notes
- Advocacy-side authorship. Produced by Cohousing NZ Ltd, the resident-owned development company, as evidence for its own objection. Methods are stated (CAD measurement; per-site data sources listed in section 2.3; ‘The CAD files are available on request’) but the analysis was not independently audited, and the comparative percentages are the community’s own case. Hence
data_quality: medium. The Council’s response letter (OT_240) shows Philip Brown, Service Manager: Resource Management & Building, accepted the substance in part, reducing the contribution rate from 6% to 3.5% of lot value. - Physical form. The PDF runs 19 pages: prose sections, four same-scale aerial area-analysis sheets (pp.6-9), and four per-site working-arithmetic sheets (pp.10-13). Cover label: ‘Appendix 1: Comparative Analysis Documentation. As carried out by Cohousing NZ Ltd March 2002’.
- Address. This document gives 457 Swanson Rd, Ranui (consistent with the community’s other published documents); the Council’s 2002 response letter uses 449-455 Swanson Road. Discrepancy held verbatim across the collection, not harmonised. OT_239
- Analysed site extent vs recorded site area. The Earthsong analysed extent totals 12,902 m² (1.29 ha; gross density 24.8 units/ha) OT_239, below the 1.68 ha site area carried on the case page from LIT_018. The document measures ‘the extents of the site areas studied’, which may not equal the full legal title. Recorded, not harmonised; see the site-area caveat on earthsong_ranui.
- Superseded earlier figures. The document notes its results ‘differ slightly from data provided in our letter to WCC of 8.11.2001’ after moving from tracing-overlay to CAD measurement (section 2.5, p.14); that earlier letter is not in the collection.
- Provenance. Published by Earthsong in its public documents collection (https://www.earthsong.org.nz/resources/documents); a direct authoritative download of the published PDF, not AI-prepared.
Connections
Links to
Cases (1): Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood
Referenced by
Sources (1): OT_240
Cases (1): Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood