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Havalona Trust
The Havalona Trust is a community initiative on a beautiful property at Driving Creek, near the township of Coromandel.
Originally formed by a group of naturopaths and esoteric teachers in the late seventies, the trust was set up to provide a healing and inspirational space for alternative spiritual health and awareness to be encouraged and developed.
The trust is based on a set of founding principals which aim to encourage and nurture a more ethical, public-spirited and spiritual approach to life. Their core purpose is not only to live according to these ideals themselves but to foster these in the wider community. Spirituality, health, arts and ecology are all encompassed.
When film art director and artist Mike Gibson heard that a cottage at Havalona was coming on the market for sale he was keen to find a way to purchase it. The Trust was happy to accept Mike as a member because his interests in a sustainable, holistic, creative and collective way of living were a good fit with theirs.
Getting a bank loan approved for this purpose would have been difficult, as the ownership structure is based around individual licenses to occupy the Havalona Trust land, rather then the conventional unit title form of individual ownership. Consequently, Mike approached Prometheus knowing that we had a history of lending in similar circumstances.
Given the close match between the Trust's values and our own we had no hesitation, once we were satisfied with the usual financial assessment, in approving Mike's application and helping him to become the newest member of the Havalona Trust.
