Building
Healthy Communities Through Cooperative Economics, by Using an
Entrepreneurship-Centered Economic Development Strategy
The Escambia County Community Land Trust, Inc. (ECCLT) would
like to
introduce the community land trust model as a viable and visible
market-driven community investment vehicle and to move Pensacola forward. CLTs
are
an effective illustration of local control, homeownership, asset
building, and
especially, the recycling of public subsidies-values that the
Bush Administration
has embraced.
A community land trust is a private non-profit corporation created
to acquire and hold land for the benefit of a community and to provide long-term,
affordable access to land and housing for low-income community residents. CLTs strive to
balance the ability to build fair equity with future affordability for the next homeowner.
The strength of this model is that a low-income person can purchase a home as a much-needed
middle step to get ahead-i.e. getting out of consumer debt, reducing debt
to income ratio-while still building equity in a home and in a community.
The CLT housing model has several noteworthy benefits from
a public policy
perspective. CLTs promote permanent, long-term affordability of
a community’s housing stock while at the same time preserving all public and private
subsidies that were
utilized to develop the housing. By removing the cost of land
and utilizing a resale
formula that balances the homeowner’s equity interest with
the affordability interest of
the community, CLT housing is more affordable than most any other
housing program
and can be purchased by households otherwise locked out of the
housing market. The
CLT model typically protects the public investment for renewable
99-year periods –
allowing one subsidy to keep operating for a century or longer
– far more permanent
than the average 20-year life span of most public subsidy programs.
Many CLTs also
provide pre- and post purchase counseling, helping buyers not
only to get a mortgage,
but also making sure that they can maintain the payments and keep
up their home.
CLTs serve to promote the building or re-building of community.
As membership-
controlled organizations, CLTs promote civic participation and
nurture new leadership.
The natural interdependency of CLT participants can rebuild community
fiber, as residents often create enduring relationships, share resources
and help each other out.
CLTs are also tremendously flexible in the ways in which they
respond to the
distinctive needs of individual communities. CLTs accomplish several
goals at one
time and function well in a variety of real estate markets. They
stabilize distressed
neighborhoods by reducing absentee ownership. They prevent displacement
and
preserve the income diversity of neighborhoods leading an increasing
number of
policymakers to point to CLTs as the perfect antidote to the unintended
gentrification
and increased housing costs that often accompany “Smart Growth”
anti-sprawl initiatives.
