Neighbourhood Cohousing Fund
The Neighbourhood Cohousing Fund aims to establish a new housing
co-operative from a group of neighbouring houses.
The fund is for
groups of friendly neighbours with
adjoining properties, who wish to formalise their neighbourhood
good-will by setting up a housing co-op.
The
fund pays the basic costs to transform the properties into a
housing co-op, and gives advice and support to make it happen. It pays
for the landscaping of the backyards, legal costs, and retrofitting of
some shared facilities.
Applicants design their new
co-operative how they want it. The fund can provide design advice and
support.
Applicants may want to have a
look at the Peterborough
Housing Co-op as a successful working example.
How the Fund Works
Applications are now open and
inquiries are welcomed at any time.
The
fund will pay for:
- landscaping the yards into a cohousing design that
you want,
- retrofitting to make a shared facility (such as a
common room), and
- the legal costs for forming the co-operative.
Applicants
should first contact the Trust and discuss their idea, whether it's
eligible and see if the fund is able to help. The Trust may visit the
proposed co-operative, and
can provide advice to develop the co-operative design.
The fund can help applicants make
a formal application to the Trust.
This application will include; a
proposal (location,
properties and people involved, what you want), a map of the
existing
properties, the proposed co-operative design, outline
of its
co-operative features (common land, shared resources, social
interaction), brief summary of proposed legal
structure, copies of each
property’s legal titles, and letters of agreement by each
property owner.
The Trust then decides on the
proposal, and what it will and will not fund. This may take a couple of
months.
The new
co-operative will organise the contractors, supervise the work, and do
the new planting. The
fund will pay the lawyer and contractors directly.
The Small Print
Note
that the fund is entirely discretional. The Trust may choose not to
fund any project even if it appears to match the qualifying criteria.
It does not have to disclose its reasons. The fund has a limited
budget,
which only slowly builds up over time. We will let you know whether you
are likely to succeed, before inviting a full application.
Eligibility
The
fund is for new residential
co-operatives within Aotearoa. Such a co-operative should have three
aspects:
- The properties are landscaped
to a co-housing design that includes private dwellings with
semi-private yards that adjoin a
common area. Yards are divided by small shrubs rather than fences.
- It
should include some common facilities (such as a common room, kids play
area) and has some
built in co-operative features (such as weekly pot-luck dinners).
- The new co-op must have its own legal entity
(see Legal Structure below), and freehold titles replaced by
unit titles.
The Trust will not fund existing co-operatives or
clustered housing that is not managed by its residents.
The Trust may be open to negotiation on new
purpose-built co-operatives, differing
legal statuses of the co-operative than an Unit Titles structure, and
co-operatives that are not owned by their residents, but are managed
by them.
How a Housing Co-op Might Look
As
an example. Imagine that each of your neighbours, and another three
over the back fence are keen to
form a housing co-operative.
How would the new set-up look? That would
be decided by you as a group; which things you wanted to pool, and to
keep. Here is one possible example.
Your present
situation is that you have your own house (bottom middle in the diagram
below). You own a house on its own section with a
backyard of 300m². The
yard includes a garden, toolshed, lawnmower,
garage, sleepout and trampoline.
As a co-operative, you still own your own house,
garage and a backyard out
to 6 metres from the back of the house (90 m²),
with a line of
shrubs to show where your property ends. You choose to keep your
sleepout.
You also have a sixth share in a common backyard of
1290 m². This includes
shared use of a common room (second lounge),
laundry, (your old) toolshed, gardens, picnic area, mini-sports field
and a kids' playground. The kids' playground includes a slide, sandpit,
swings, treehut and your old trampoline.
You
have a sixth share
in the co-operative which owns a laundry and lawnmower which is for
everyone's use. You can sell your own lawnmower. You could convert your
house’s laundry into another room. You may have provided your washer to
the co-operative, but have sold your dryer.
By forming a
co-operative, you have gained another room for your house, your kids
have gained an extra backyard nearly four times in size (1100 m²), as well as a
proper playground. On top of this you have gained a stronger group of
friends.
«BACK TO TOP»
Legal
Structure
Developing a legal status for the co-operative is the
biggest commitment from applicants. A
housing co-operative must do two things. Firstly it should serve the
interests of its residents. Second it must have its own entity.
On
the one hand, residents should have control over their own household,
and preferably title to their own house. They should be able to sell
their house if they want to move.
One the
other hand, the co-operative should be bigger than the sum of its
parts. It should survive any individual member. The legal status must
prevent situations such as the third household in a row of five
withdrawing from the co-operative, thereby bringing down everyone else.
We suggest that the most suitable legal status for a
group of
property owners with freehold titles is to transfer their legal status
to Unit Titles. The fund will pay for independent legal advice from a
lawyer of your choice.
Unit
titles is a common form of ownership in
multi-storey apartments, and is very suitable for housing
co-operatives. The key points are that it allows
for individuals
to own their own home, so home owners are still able to take out a
mortgage against their title, and are free to sell their
house.
Home
owners also have a proportional share in any common areas,
and an
Unit Title entity (the co-operative) is created, and governed by the
home owners.
Funding Estimates
1. Legal
The fund will pay
all the legal costs for establishing the co-operative. We
estimate
the likely legal costs for six adjoining properties to be around
$20,000.
This
includes: establishing a Body Corporate (the co-operative's legal
identity), and its operating rules; surveying an Unit Plan (mapping
what is owned privately (house, immediate backyard) and what is owned
by the homeowners as a collective (common lounge, common yard,
poolroom)); conveyancing fees, transferring freehold title to unit
title; costs involved in any existing mortgages that are secured
against a freehold title to being secured against a unit title), and
your independent legal advice.
2. Landscaping
The fund will pay for new plants
and basic landscaping of the co-op, estimated at around $6,000.
This
includes fence and tree removal, labour for connecting the backyards,
dump or skip costs, relocation costs for sheds, picnic tables, new lawn
seeding, new seeding plants, and associated planting costs such as
bark-chips.
We expect the new co-op to contribute as well,
specifically, to draw up a landscaping plan (our trust can provide
advice on this), knock down the internal fences, and to do the
planting.
The fund will not pay for a landscaping consultant,
full grown plants, or fancy garden features (such as water fountains).
3. Shared Facilities
The
fund will pay for developing basic shared facilities that encourage
co-operation. Decoration and fittings will be provided to a basic but
reasonable quality level. We estimate around $44,000 for this.
This
includes converting an existing shed, sleepout or lounge into a common
lounge, converting an existing room or shed into a shared laundry
(optional), and any other reasonable idea that will make the
co-operative, such as moving a garage.
The fund will not pay for new buildings or
recreational facilities (such as a junglegym or tennis court).
We
expect the co-operative to pool some of their present backyard
resources (such as a toolshed, treehut, sandpit), including an existing
shed or two so they can be converted into a common room; also to
organise and oversee the tradespeople, and obtain three quotes for each
job over $2,000.
