The structure, in full

The short version is on How it works. This is the whole thing — how we own it, what you own, how the money works, and why it can never be taken.

Two entities, one purpose

We deliberately split ownership into two bodies. Keeping them separate is what makes the whole thing both permanent and fair.

① The Community Land Trust (a non-profit)

• Owns all the land, forever — every acre: the home sites and the shared forest reserve.
• Set up as a non-profit society with the perpetuity written into its constitution: on dissolution the land must pass to another like-purpose non-profit. It cannot be sold off or mortgaged.
• Runs the mission — planter health, programs, the tree nursery, reforestation — and — once it becomes a registered charity — will be able to take tax-deductible donations (charitable status it can hold as long as the housing stays genuinely affordable).
• Can place a conservation covenant on the wild forest portion — locking it wild and unlocking conservation tax benefits and grants.

② The members' Co-op (us)

• We are the co-op. One member, one vote — we govern the place ourselves. No outside owner, no boss.
• The co-op allocates each member an occupancy of their ~3-acre cell — recorded in the commons' own map, inheritable by an approved member (nobody owns the dirt) — and each member owns their own log home outright.
• Each member holds a capped co-op share (~$10k) — real, fair, and recoverable at paid-up value when you leave, but capped (see below). The co-op holds the shares; the trust holds the land — that's the firewall.
• We can legally pool our own buy-ins. Co-ops have a member-funding path the law built on purpose — so working people can raise real money together, where an ordinary company selling shares to the public would drown in lawyers and regulators. It's a sanctioned, designed route (a securities exemption), not a loophole — and it's the lever that makes a planters'-owned commons actually fundable.

Why two, not one?

If we just co-owned a lot together, it could be sold, mortgaged, fought over, or slowly bought up. Splitting land-holding (the trust, permanent) from membership & homes (the co-op, ours to run) means the land is locked forever and we still own our homes and govern our lives. Best of both.

What you own vs. what's shared

"Capped equity" — the anti-gentrification rule

When you leave or pass on, you get your money back — your paid-up share value — with no market windfall and no share of land appreciation. Why cap it? So a thriving commons can't be flipped to the highest bidder in 20 years and price out the next generation of broke planters. It stays a planters' place, permanently.

Important: the cap is on the commons — your share and your cell — so the place stays affordable for the next planter. Your business, your balsamic empire, your savings — all yours, entirely uncapped. The cap keeps it a planters' place; it does nothing to your living.

How the money works (and why there's no bank)

• Buy-in — modest, and most of it can be sweat equity (building, replanting) instead of cash.
• Donations to the trust will be tax-deductible once it's a registered charity — but charity money can never buy you private equity (that's the legal firewall between the two entities).
• 0% sponsorship — a backer fronts a planter's buy-in at zero interest; they repay over time or in sweat. More →
• We buy debt-free. No mortgage means nothing for a bank to ever foreclose. (The Doukhobors built exactly this in this valley a century ago — and lost it all to mortgage foreclosure in the 1930s. We don't repeat that.)
• When money does move (only once the entities legally exist), it goes through a lawyer's trust account — never a personal account — and only when a land deal is firm.

How it scales

We start with a small founding crew, prove it works, then grow cohort by cohort — buying neighbouring land with cash as more join. The forest reserve grows in value as we replant it: collective security that compounds with our own labour.

Claim a founding share →   Read the FAQ →