The 10:1 Model: Ten Homes, One Hectare, Forever
Europe is 9.6 million homes short. Over 80% of its natural habitats are degraded. The EU has appointed its first Housing Commissioner and passed the Nature Restoration Law — binding targets to restore 20% of degraded land by 2030.
These are treated as separate problems. They’re not. They’re two symptoms of the same broken model.
Developers optimise for built area. Every hectare of woodland is a hectare of lost revenue. Conservation organisations protect land but can’t deliver housing. Policy creates mandates without delivery models.
NeighbourWood’s 10:1 Model solves both at once — and does something no traditional developer can: it makes homes more affordable over time, funded by nature itself.
The Formula
Carbon + Biodiversity + Water from 1 hectare of native woodland sustains 10 homes.
That’s the formula. Ten net-zero homes, permanently linked to one hectare of native Irish woodland. The homes fund the woodland. The woodland makes the homes more valuable — and, over time, more affordable.
How It Actually Works
The 10:1 Model creates two separate business units with a permanent connection between them.
Business Unit 1: Home Development. NeighbourWood Communities (NWC) acquires dedicated residential sites and builds net-zero modular homes certified to BER A1 — the highest residential energy performance standard in Ireland. No land is “lost” to woodland. Standard residential planning, with strong nature integration. Higher density. Better homes.
Business Unit 2: The Woodland Bank. The NeighbourWood Stewardship Trust (NST) — an independent body with an irrevocable asset lock — acquires agricultural or other non-residential land and establishes permanent native woodland. Oak, birch, Scots pine, rowan, holly, hazel, alder, and willow. This land can never be sold, developed, or converted. The Woodland Bank is typically located 10–20 km from the residential sites it serves.
The Connection. Every home sale includes a permanent legal covenant linking the property to the Woodland Bank. Homeowners pay a Woodland Stewardship Fee of €850 per year, which funds the woodland. In return, they receive dedicated access, an allocated woodland section, seasonal programming — guided walks, wildlife surveys, community planting days — and documented carbon and biodiversity outcomes linked to their home.
Maximum 10 homes per hectare of Woodland Bank. That’s the 10:1 ratio.
Why Separate the Housing and the Woodland?
This is the question. If you care about nature, why not put the woodland on the same site as the homes?
We tried that. Conceptually, it’s beautiful. Practically, it creates five problems.
Land efficiency. If half your site is woodland, you can only build on the other half. That doubles your land cost per home and halves your density. In a housing crisis, that’s not a compromise — it’s a disqualifier.
Planning complexity. A site with both homes and woodland requires mixed-use planning — residential plus forestry. Two planning regimes on one parcel. It’s slower, riskier, and harder to replicate.
Woodland quality. Small plots of woodland surrounded by housing aren’t ecologically optimal. They’re fragmented, disturbed, and limited in the species they can support. A large, contiguous Woodland Bank is a genuine ecosystem.
Scalability. Every development site must have suitable woodland conditions — soil type, drainage, connectivity to existing habitats. That dramatically limits where you can build. With the 10:1 Model, housing sites and woodland sites are sourced independently based on what’s optimal for each.
Export potential. We want this model to work beyond Ireland — in the UK, across Europe, anywhere biodiversity regulation creates demand. On-site woodland ties the model to specific site conditions. The 10:1 Model is flexible enough for any partner, any market.
Three Revenue Engines
Here’s what makes this a platform, not property development.
Engine 1: Development Profit. Home sales generate direct development profit. Net-zero specification commands premium pricing while delivering genuine value to homeowners.
Engine 2: Perpetual Stewardship Fees. €2,220 per home per year — across three tiers covering estate management, woodland stewardship, and energy infrastructure maintenance. Linked to CPI. Collected forever through the permanent legal covenant. Every home sold adds to a growing perpetual revenue base. This is the annuity that transforms a developer into an infrastructure company.
Engine 3: Export Licensing. The complete 10:1 Model — packaged as the NeighbourWood Operating System (N-OS) — is licensed internationally at high margins. The UK’s mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain requirement creates immediate, regulation-driven demand.
Competitors build houses. We build infrastructure.
How the Woodland Makes Homes More Affordable
This is the part most people don’t expect from a housing company.
Traditional developers sell homes and move on. The homes get more expensive to run over time — energy prices rise, retrofits are required, management companies pass through costs. Affordability erodes from day one.
The 10:1 Model works in reverse. Affordability improves over time, through three mechanisms.
Day-one savings. NWC homes are net-zero by design. Ground-source heat pumps, solar panels, battery storage, and water treatment systems are built in — not added later. The result: €3,220–5,010 per year in direct operational savings compared to a typical Irish home. After the €2,220 in annual fees, homeowners are conservatively €1,000–2,790 better off every year. The fees fund real infrastructure; the savings outweigh them from the start.
Green mortgage advantage. BER A1 homes qualify for green mortgage rate discounts of 0.8–1.2%, worth an estimated €2,460 per year on a typical mortgage. And NWC homes are already compliant with Ireland’s upcoming Zero Emission Building standards — avoiding the €50,000–100,000+ retrofit that most Irish homeowners will face by 2035. That’s a financial protection built into the purchase price, not an additional cost down the road.
The Credit Allocation Waterfall. This is where the model becomes genuinely different. As the Woodland Bank matures it begins generating verifiable environmental credits: carbon sequestration, biodiversity net gain units, and water quality credits.
The proceeds from those credits don’t just flow to shareholders. They’re allocated through a structured waterfall, and the single largest allocation — 25% of proceeds — goes directly to a Home Affordability Fund. That fund will subsidise home prices for qualifying buyers in future developments.
In other words, the woodland we plant today will make homes more affordable for families who haven’t bought yet. Every hectare restored increases the affordability fund. Every year the woodland grows, more credit revenue matures. The model gets more affordable with time, not less.
By Year 10, our projections show 181 affordable homes delivered — 28.5% of the total portfolio — funded not by government grants, but by the environmental value that the Woodland Bank itself generates. From Year 5, we will begin partnering with Approved Housing Bodies to deliver cost rental homes at 14% below market rate, funded through transparent cost-plus pricing.
This is structural affordability, embedded in the legal and financial architecture of the model. It’s not a corporate social responsibility initiative that disappears when margins tighten. It’s coded into the covenant.
What This Means for You
If you’re a homebuyer: Your home is net-zero, heated by the earth, powered by the sun, and permanently connected to native woodland that grows for generations. You’re €1,000–2,790 better off every year than a typical homeowner — even after fees. And the woodland that surrounds your community will fund affordability for the next generation of buyers.
If you’re an investor: Three revenue engines from one integrated model. Perpetual income, platform economics, and a €1.1 trillion addressable EU + UK market. The Credit Allocation Waterfall demonstrates that impact and returns are structurally aligned, not in tension. The founders are committing to live in the community — this isn’t theory.
If you’re a council: Housing delivery and nature restoration that reinforce each other. Standard residential planning. No mixed-use complexity. And an affordability pathway from Year 3 that scales to 28.5% of the portfolio by Year 10 — funded by environmental credits, not grants. Twenty percent affordable purchase from the first scaled projects, with AHB cost rental partnerships layered in from Year 5.
We Live There
My wife Esther and I are purchasing a four-bedroom home in our own pilot development at full market rate. We’ll pay all fees. We’ll raise our family in the community.
No other developer commits to living in what they build. We are, because we believe the model works — and we’re willing to bet our family’s home on it.
That’s the 10:1 Model. Ten homes. One hectare. Forever — and more affordable with every year that passes.
NeighbourWood Communities is building Ireland’s first net-zero woodland community in County Meath. Register your interest to receive updates and priority access.