The Greensboro City Council indicated support for a plan to establish a community land trust at the Thursday, March 16 work session.
A community land trust is a nonprofit organization that retains ownership of land but sells the houses on the land to qualified purchasers.
Since the homeowner purchases the house but not the land, the cost is considerably lower than the market rate. It was described as another tool in the affordable housing tool kit.
There are currently more than 300 community land trusts in 41 states, Washington, DC, and Puerta Rico.
In North Carolina Asheville, Charlotte, Concord, Chapel Hill, Raleigh and Durham already have community land trusts. The community land trust in Durham is one of the oldest in the country dating back to the 1980s.
In Greensboro the planned community land trust would operate in City Council Districts 1, 2 and 5.
Usually, community land trusts place a cap on resale profits when a homeowner decides to sell, to preserve the affordability of the home.
While the house is purchased the land is leased from the community land trust and there is usually a lease payment that can be as low as $15 a month.
One of the few objections to the community land trust program was made by City Councilmember Sharon Hightower who said, “I don’t like the idea of the lease thing.”
Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann said, “A monthly fee is a way of contributing to the future of the community land trust.”
The Housing and Neighborhood Development Department Director Michelle Kennedy said that currently the program is in the education phase and that there had been a lot of interest shown at community meetings. She said, “The community is really engaged in the conversation.”
Kennedy also said that the City Council wasn’t being asked to make any decision on the community land trust but that the presentation was simply to get the council up to speed on the program.
Do you smell a major SNAFU?
Yes! So, the non-profit (an economic distortion in itself) comes in and buys up a neighborhood? If so, what happens to the current residents? If they buy up undeveloped land (at a fire sale price), then they would build the houses, a la Habitat for Humanity? But, my understanding of how Habitat works is that the house and land are sold together.
If, in the community land trust, the home buyer never buys the land, it seems that assessment of property taxes would become a nightmarish mess.
Also, whether it is rent control or sale profit control, price caps are just socialist market manipulations. I really question how this works in those other cities.
I can see & hear it, too….
If the “tenants” have little skin in the game, you can imagine what you get, and what happens to the house over time.
Owing land is a major way for a person to rise out of poverty. Owing a house on land that someone else owns is dangerous. If you’re unable to pay for your lease/rent or the owner of the land decides to sell the land, you virtually own nothing. This is not much different than sharecropper farming.
Save to buy your own home on your own land even if it’s a one bedroom, one bath home with a kitchen on an eighth of an acre. It’s far better than someone else owning the land your home is on. Find a place where land and homes are less expensive and adapt your skills to a job that will work in that area. There are better ways than allowing the government to own the land you live on.
So it’s a fancy word for a trailer park with a real house.
Does Hightower want anyone in her district to be responsible for paying for anything? Does she know that every meeting she advances the theory of racism through low expectations? She continually makes statements that make her constituents look irresponsible. If you cannot pay $15 a month to lease land you shouldn’t own a house. How would the person afford to maintain the house?