Drawing on insights from 115 community land trusts (CLTs), Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts, a new 2024 Policy Focus Report released by The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, explores how CLTs are partnering with public officials to help address the housing affordability crisis.
In this model, individuals buy homes on land leased from a local CLT and agree to limit the resale price. This reduces the upfront cost of homeownership and keeps those homes affordable for future income-qualified households.
“There has been a seismic shift in public policy over the last two decades, especially among cities and counties,” said John Emmeus Davis, a city planner who has spent much of his 40-year career providing technical assistance to CLTs and documenting their history and performance. “Public resources invested in helping to expand homeownership were once routinely allowed to leak away when assisted homes resold. Today, a growing number of public officials are prudently committed to preserving those subsidies—and the hard-won affordability of the homes themselves—for many years. Municipalities are partnering with CLTs because they have proven their effectiveness in making that happen. CLTs remain in the picture long after a home is purchased, ensuring that affordability lasts, homes are maintained, and newly minted homeowners succeed. These multi-faceted duties of stewardship are what CLTs do best.”
Preserving Affordable Homeownership builds on the Lincoln Institute’s 2008 Policy Focus Report The City-CLT Partnership, coauthored by Davis and Rick Jacobus. In addition, Still the One: Affordable Housing Initiatives in Burlington Vermont’s Old North End, a multimedia case study published by the Lincoln Institute in 2023, features Davis and several colleagues from the Champlain Housing Trust, one of the largest CLTs in the United States.
“The survey of CLTs conducted by the International Center for this report revealed that city and county government partnerships with CLTs have grown in number, variety, and sophistication since the 2008 Policy Focus Report, and a number of state governments are now supporting CLTs as well,” said Kristin King-Ries, an attorney whose practice focuses on creating and stewarding homeownership opportunities for people priced out of the traditional real estate market. “This updated report offers insights and tips on what is possible when governments and CLTs work together toward the shared goal of creating permanently affordable homeownership. The report also examines unintended consequences of governmental policies and conditions that make it difficult for CLTs to produce and to preserve affordably priced homes–and offers recommendations for how government officials can work more productively with CLTs.”
Preserving Affordable Homeownership reveals significant trends in the landscape of CLTs and municipal-CLT partnerships, like more municipalities are starting CLTs. Tampa, Florida, for instance, set aside part of a $10 million bond for that purpose, and Indianapolis appropriated $1.5 million to start a citywide CLT.
Lasting affordability is also a concern. More cities are incorporating this into housing subsidies and regulations, with many considering how to more fairly assess and tax the lands and homes in CLT portfolios. State governments are increasingly providing legislative and financial support for CLTs from Connecticut to Texas.
In addition to identifying trends, the report provides recommendations for successful public-CLT partnerships. “This is a groundbreaking and insightful report,” said Sheila R. Foster, Professor of Climate, Columbia Climate School. “It will make a tremendous difference to practitioners, cities, and policymakers as CLTs are experiencing historic growth and expansion in an increasingly unaffordable housing market.”
Click here to read the entire report, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trust.
