Could Community Land Trusts Be The Solution For Housing Affordability in North Texas?
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Hundreds of new affordable housing units could be offered in Dallas and Fort Worth over the next five years under the Community Land Trust model, a group of expert panelists said Thursday. The Dallas-Fort Worth Housing Consortium held its quarterly meeting Feb. 29 at Trinity Habitat for Humanity to discuss CLTs and how they’re building momentum in North Texas.
The CLT model was originally devised by civil rights leaders and Black farmers to create permanently affordable homes.
The “classic CLT” is generally a nonprofit organization with a defined service area, corporate membership, and a tripartite board of community members, leaseholders (homeowners), and public stakeholders. However, it can fall under the organizational structure of a municipality or its housing department.
In simple terms, an individual owns a home, and the CLT owns the land. A ground lease ties the improvements and the land together, and a low price is locked in initially and at resale, so residents can stay in their communities long-term.
Donna VanNess, president and CEO of Housing Channel, a Community Housing Development Organization, moderated last week’s event.
“Not only do we want to create affordable housing, but we want it to be sustainable,” VanNess said. “These projects can help future generations.”
Fort Worth’s Community Land Trust Program
Fort Worth Assistant City Manager Fernando Costa said his City Council approved a Community Land Trust strategy last fall and already a project pipeline is in place.
The first CLT development in Fort Worth, Carroll Park, is expected to bring 150 to 160 housing units over three years. The Fort Worth CLT acquired 15.6 acres from the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for the project. The city authorized $4 million from its Housing Finance Corporation and $7 million from its general fund for the $11 million project.
“As it turned out, we didn’t need the $7 million because the Rainwater Charitable Foundation stepped in .. and there was no delay in the acquisition,” Costa said. “The seminary needed to close on the transaction by the end of last calendar year.”
The 200-unit Renaissance Heights project is next in the pipeline.
Sarah Geer, program officer with Rainwater, said they hope to have close to 400 units from those two projects in the next few years.
“That positions [the Fort Worth Community Land Trust] in the top 20 percent in terms of scale with CLTs across the country,” she said.
The cost to develop a CLT housing unit is about $250,000, and the amount a qualifying household can afford is about $180,000, so about $70,000 per unit is needed in federal grant funds, Housing Facility Corporation money, or a philanthropic donation, Costa explained.
“A key to the success of a Community Land Trust is funding to subsidize the difference between what it costs to build affordable housing and what a low-to-moderate-income family can afford,” he said.
Dallas’ Community Land Trust Program
About a year ago, CandysDirt.com reached out to The Real Estate Council president and CEO Linda McMahon and Thor Erickson, assistant director for Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization at the City of Dallas.
We wanted to know more about Community Land Trusts and why the concept hasn’t gotten off the ground locally.
They told us it would happen, that the mechanism already exists in Dallas, but it’s a lengthy process and requires buy-in from communities and philanthropic groups.
During last week’s panel discussion, Erickson highlighted Dallas’ adopted housing policy, which includes three target equity strategy areas, all in Southern Dallas.
“We have to invest in infrastructure in the southern sector in order to build more housing units,” he said. “There’s a desire to see more dense options — duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and single-family homeownership. There’s a variety of resources, and Community Land Trusts fit into that strategy nicely.”
Displacement pressure is occurring across the city, Erickson added.
“The Community Land Trust strategy fits really nicely if we’re able to work with great community partners to have that long-term affordability in the CLT model,” he said. “We know these neighborhoods are going to change. We know there’s investment coming to the southern sector. What we can do from a housing perspective is ensure we have a proper affordability mix so when that neighborhood does start to change, we ensure there will continue to be affordable homes.”
Moving Forward With Community Land Trusts
Both Dallas and Fort Worth engaged Grounded Solutions, a nationally recognized expert in Community Land Trusts, to assist in the planning and creation of a “backbone organization” to support the housing model. Both municipalities plan to hire an executive director to oversee their respective organizations.
McMahon said that when TREC first set out to assist the city in establishing a CLT, at least three neighborhoods were interested. After working with the neighborhoods, it was determined that they didn’t have the capacity to facilitate and market the project. TREC reconvened with city officials to create a citywide CLT that allows each interested neighborhood to be represented.
Nonprofit agencies have been assembling land for a long time, she added.
“They have a lot of assets that they’re ready to donate into the Community Land Trust,” she said. “They need the organizational structure.”
There are more than 225 Community Land Trusts in the U.S.
“The research around the country shows that a person buying a CLT property is one who is buying an affordable unit in a community or neighborhood that they want to invest in for the long term,” Erickson told CandysDirt.com last year. “That’s quite a few people. The CLT model allows for some cost savings in the purchase, but the resale is restricted to ensure it’s always affordable. If the family who first bought it wants to move, they can, but that home has to be reserved at an affordable price point for the next buyer.”
