Land trust will lock in housing affordability

• Ed Finkel
• July 11, 2005

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Affordable housing is on the way to 10 lots in Humboldt Park – with more on the way – thanks to a planned land trust that will help low- to moderate-income households put a foot in the door of the local housing market.

The Chicago Department of Planning and Development has set aside 10 lots to help the West Humboldt Park Family and Community Development Council (WHPDC) set into motion the First Community Land Trust of Chicago. Housing to be built on the lots will have affordability locked in and give the community a voice in development decisions.

A land trust is a nonprofit organization that holds title to the land itself while the houses are sold to low- to moderate-income buyers, who are offered long-term (in this case, 99-year) renewable ground leases. The West Humboldt Park land trust is the first in Chicago.

“The priorities in developing Chicago neighborhoods right now emphasize the market, but I don’t think low-income people have the wherewithal to fully participate,” says Bill Howard, executive director of WHPDC. “I look at the land trust as a way for low-income people to participate in this market economy.”

Howard says the land will belong to the trust in perpetuity. “It’s an affordable housing measure, and it’s also a way for the community to have a voice in dictating the course of future development.”

First phase in 2006

The trust eventually could encompass 50 to 60 lots, perhaps including commercial properties along Chicago Avenue. It will stretch roughly from Kedzie to Pulaski and Division to Kinzie, an area that now has hundreds of vacant lots. The first 10 lots should be built out by the end of 2007, Howard says.

The genesis of the trust came at a December 2002 community meeting during which residents complained about the increasing lack of affordable real estate. WHPDC undertook research and determined, with help from a panel convened by the Urban Land Institute, that a land trust might be the best option.

With grant money from LISC and Washington Mutual, Howard and three community colleagues traveled to Camden , N.J., to tour a land trust there, one of 140 in the nation. And they got the support of 27th Ward Ald. Walter Burnett, who accompanied the committee at his own expense and later reviewed the team’s “short list” of 50 to 60 potential properties.

“The alderman asked us to give him a list of where we wanted those first 10 to be,” Howard says. “He’s very interested in seeing affordable housing come to West Humboldt Park . He recognizes this as an innovation.”

“Land values are increasing rapidly,” Burnett says, “which is not allowing people to stay in the neighborhood or move back. The land trust gives the community a little more control to be able to stabilize the neighborhood. It also brings about an organization of residents in the neighborhood and gives them a sense of foresight on what they want to see. The community is taking charge.”

Part of the plan

The land trust concept is one of 58 projects outlined in the Humboldt Park Quality-of-Life plan developed in 2004 and released in May 2005. Housing affordability and land control were key themes of the task force, says Joy Aruguete, executive director of Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp., which coordinated the planning effort.

“What the land trust does is takes a long-term approach,” she says. “It’s forward-thinking in that it’s being done in an area where land is still affordable and is putting in place a mechanism to ensure that there’s [affordable] homeownership available over the long term.”

Next steps include finding subsidy funding, selecting the builder (expected to happen this summer), and “preparing the community for an election of the members of the board, who eventually will oversee this land trust [with input from the city, banks who fund it and other players]. It will be their baby,” Howard says. “We’ve actually talked to a number of developers and builders. We’ve got a number who are interested.”

Contact: Bill Howard, WHPDC, 773-342-0036.

More stories about strategies to reuse vacant land will be posted soon.

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