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The story of the Sawmill neighborhood, one of the oldest Latino neighborhoods in Albuquerque, is a familiar one. Sawmill was, for a long time, among the city鈥檚 most affordable places to live. But it is also within walking distance of the downtown business district and adjacent to the historic Old Town area, a major New Mexico tourist attraction. In the early 1990s, a wave of property investment swept through Sawmill, which included development of a huge retail plaza, luxury condominiums, and a hotel convention complex. Businesses appeared on residential blocks once lined with affordable, single-family houses. This economic activity caused real estate values throughout the Sawmill neighborhood to spiral upward, pushing land and housing costs beyond the reach of families who had lived there for decades.

Here鈥檚 where the story takes a different direction. Members of the Sawmill Advisory Council (SAC), a group of neighborhood residents formed 10聽years earlier to stop pollution from a nearby particle board factory, decided they needed to do more than protest. They formed a nonprofit community development corporation to build affordable housing in the community. While working on its first seven homes, SAC learned that 27 acres of vacant land near the factory were going up for sale. Fearing that the factory would expand if it could acquire this parcel, SAC convinced the city to buy the land with the understanding that SAC would be consulted on any future development planned for the site.

As the city plodded through a multi-year process of rezoning the site to allow for residential and commercial development, SAC鈥檚 leaders realized that the only way to be sure that development benefited long-time, lower-income residents was for the community itself to own the land, guide its development, and control its use.

So, in 1997, they converted the Sawmill Community Development Corporation into a community land trust (CLT). After working with residents to prepare a master plan, and months of negotiations between SAC and city officials over the details of a development agreement, the city of Albuquerque eventually conveyed title to all 27 acres to the Sawmill CLT.

Sawmill CLT is a traditional community land trust with characteristics common to most of the 260 CLTs across the United States, including two of the best-known: Dudley Neighbors, Inc., in Boston, and the Champlain Housing Trust, in Burlington, Vt. (see YES! Winter 2009 and Fall 2008). It鈥檚 a nonprofit corporation accountable to a community-based membership that nominates and elects a majority of the seats on the board. A third of the Sawmill CLT board represents tenants and homeowners who live on SCLT鈥檚 land, a third represents residents who live in the surrounding neighborhood, and a third of the seats are reserved for 鈥減ublic representatives鈥� appointed by the elected members of the board.

Secure and affordable聽

A community land trust is one type of 鈥渟hared equity homeownership,鈥� where the rights, responsibilities, risks, and rewards of ownership are shared between an income-eligible household and an organizational steward. In exchange for the initial subsidy, which allows them to buy the home for a below-market price, owners agree to limits on how much they can sell the house for鈥攂alancing asset-building with ongoing affordability.

While most CLTs develop new housing, about a third have buyer鈥檚-choice programs that allow homebuyers to select an existing home to be brought into the land trust. When CLTs sell houses, they retain ownership of the land underneath and give the buyers a 99-year ground lease.

Beyond helping lower-income families become homeowners鈥攁nd preserving the affordability of these homes for the next generation鈥攖he CLT enters into an agreement with homeowners to support their ongoing success. A recent study revealed that during the worst years of the mortgage meltdown, conventional homeowners were 10 times more likely to find themselves in a foreclosure proceeding than CLT homeowners.

Another type of shared equity home-ownership is the limited equity cooperative (LEC). LECs make ownership affordable to lower-income households, who buy shares in land and buildings owned by the cooperative housing corporation and hold a secure lease for a particular unit. The co-op鈥檚 members accept restrictions on the resale price of their units, ensuring that the public investment in affordability is maintained.

The largest concentration of limited equity housing co-ops is in New York City. Many were formed in buildings that had been abandoned and taken over by the city in the early 1970s, when the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board began helping tenants buy those buildings and set up cooperatives to run them. Now these 1,700 buildings and 30,000 units are bastions of affordability in an extremely high-priced city, providing lower-income households access to the city鈥檚 opportunities in education, culture, and employment.

In Washington, D.C., tenants of Capitol Manor, a complex in the rapidly gentrifying U Street corridor, organized to buy it when the federal affordability restrictions on the buildings expired. It was a long haul鈥� taking from 2001 to 2005 to secure financing from the city and National Cooperative Bank and to get the renovations done. But the determined residents won out, with the help of a developer who saw the value of keeping affordable units on a block where condos were starting to sell for half a million dollars. Along the way, black and Latino neighbors who had rarely mixed began to work together as co-owners of a precious resource.

How these things get started

The establishment of CLTs and LECs follows many different paths. Sometimes, they鈥檙e the result of grassroots organizing by community residents seeking to improve their neighborhood. Sometimes, they are formed to create bulwarks against market pressures or municipal investment that threaten to displace the neighborhood鈥檚 most vulnerable residents. They are sometimes led by a community development corporation, a Habitat for Humanity affiliate, or another nonprofit organization that may have been doing affordable housing for many years. CLTs and LECs have also been started or sponsored by city governments and private employers to preserve affordability and prevent foreclosures in owner-occupied homes. In all cases, these forms of housing are local endeavors, championed and developed by people looking for ways to expand the supply of affordable housing and empower residents to determine the future of their neighborhoods.

Creating new housing or preserving existing housing is not cheap. In some cases, a CLT or LEC receives start-up funding from a foundation or private individuals to cover organizational costs. In many other instances, municipalities have provided operational funding and project funding to establish CLTs or LECs, aided by funds from federal programs like Community Development Block Grants and HOME (a federal housing subsidy program). Fees associated with the actual development, sale, and resale of affordably priced homes are also used.

The results of this careful financing can be extraordinary, as it was in the transformation of the old Sawmill area of Albuquerque.

鈥淭oday,鈥� says Sawmill CLT executive director Connie Chavez, 鈥測ou wouldn鈥檛 recognize the place. Instead of a polluting factory whose only interest was in making money, we have a thriving community.鈥� That community is Arbolera de Vida, or 鈥渙rchard of life,鈥� a thoughtfully designed neighborhood of 93 single-family homes, with a park, plaza, community center, offices, retail space, senior apartments, and live/work spaces for home businesses. The community鈥檚 upscale appearance belies the fact that almost all the residents, from young families to single seniors, have modest incomes. They live in affordably priced housing on land that is held 鈥渋n trust鈥� for future generations and leased to residents for 99 years.

The community process has now progressed to deciding what sorts of commercial uses will go on the remaining land next to the housing. Chavez says the discussion process is challenging, but worth it. 鈥淲e dream big, and everyone gets a chance to throw out a vision.鈥�

That鈥檚 the unique virtue of community land trusts and limited equity.