Licensing & Area Presidencies
Every NewVistas community governs itself. What connects them is not a headquarters but a licensor, which is NewVistas itself, acting through its legal entity, the NewVistas Institute, and, as communities multiply, a small number of self-renewing area presidencies. Neither stands above any community.
Companion papers
The Area Presidency → The presidency of four that serves an area of about five fields of fifty communities: what it does and never does, when it is seated, how it renews itself, and who may serve.
The Originating Presidency → How the system begins from one presidency of four in the first community, holding in trust the roles of bodies that do not yet exist, until the first community is completed.
Ceding Authority → The four handovers by which the originating presidency gives up each role, on published events rather than anyone’s judgment.
What NewVistas does — and only that
NewVistas’ authority over a community is licensing only: the license for each building, the organizational paperwork, and the operating system and software that every community uses, even when mature, under a perpetual license. It cannot direct, override, or govern a community. It governs only what it licenses — its published operating specifications, its certified-vendor list, its contractors, and the setting in place of area presidencies — and it can never withhold, delay, reprice, or condition a license, fee, certification, or service to obtain any governing outcome. A community that declines its counsel stays in good standing and fully licensed. Its instruments are persuasion, training, publication, and demonstrated result.
Each building is licensed individually, by application, giving the community’s Trust the right to build it and access to certified vendors who post their costs on the licensed system — which is what lets a Trust build without a down payment or raised capital. A first building is licensed on objective, published readiness criteria only: recognition as a nonprofit corporation, a seated founding council of twelve, and a secured founding land contract. NewVistas paces new starts by what it and its vendors can support, never by anyone’s judgment of whether a new community is called for.
Its two fees
NewVistas funds itself through two cost-recovery fees, never a commission, royalty, or claim on ownership or control: five per cent on every certified-vendor payment for a licensed building’s materials, and five per cent on rental revenue for use of the operating system and app. Total collections may not exceed its actual operating and research costs plus a bounded operating reserve; any excess forces fee reductions the following cycle.
How it operates
NewVistas never owns facilities, property, or physical assets, and has no payroll or employees. Every service is done by independent contractors, under yearly renewable contracts, in one of three streams — the operating system, the design specifications, and vendor certification — and no contractor holds office, votes, or has authority over any community.
Today it operates as a nonprofit foundation, to be restructured by the end of 2028. Its founding board — David R. Hall, Karen V. Hall, and Michael A. Hall — serve as unpaid volunteers, and the foundation owns no assets. Within ten years the board is replaced by an unpaid council of twelve: Trustee, Regulatory, and Operating presidencies of four, under the same terms, birthday release, and annual single-seat renewal as every other office. It is the only coordinating body of the whole system, and no second global body may ever be created. Each of its three presidencies of four carries one world third, and each of its twelve presidents one world area of about a billion people. A president assigned an area watches it — community founding, Council of Fifty fields, any area presidency there — and may observe, coordinate, train, and alert the presidency, but never governs alone; governing acts belong to the presidency of four and the council of twelve.
Area presidencies
Growth runs in a fixed order: communities first; then, once ten communities are founded within one field of fifty, the Council of Fifty; and only then, and only when one is needed, an area presidency, serving an area of about five fields, some 250 communities. It is never set up in advance or by count: the Institute presidency carrying that world third seats one, with the approval of the full Institute council, once the area needs help certifying founders and keeping its record. Until then the originating presidency of the first community carries the area’s role, and after the first community is completed the Institute carries it. An area presidency is seated by qualification, narrowing, and public random draw, its members drawn from the Enterprise Owners of the communities it serves, serving full-time and unpaid. Once seated it renews itself one seat a year and can never be re-appointed, unseated, directed, or dissolved by anyone. It certifies founders, keeps the record of its area’s fields, and teaches the startup sequence; it creates no presidency, since each founder seats the first presidency of a new community. No body stands above it, and no body governs the body it established.
The NewVistas operating system carries super-intelligence agents that compare conditions, surface anomalies, and prepare material for deliberation — but they may never seat, authorize, certify, or decide. Every governing act carries the name of the human presidency or council responsible for it.