The City of Lakes Community Land Trust resulted from a collective, committed effort by Minneapolis residents and neighborhood associations to preserve affordable housing ownership in their community.
In late 2001, a collaboration of Powderhorn Residents Group (PRG), Seward Redesign, Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association (PPNA), and the Lyndale Neighborhood Development Corporation (LNDC) began educating themselves on best practices relating to creating and stabilizing affordability in their neighborhoods.
Through research, community conversations, an environmental scan, and the identification of opportunities, the collaborative group determined that there was a significant need in the City of Minneapolis to form a Community Land Trust (CLT).
Housed and incubated by PRG, the collaboration incorporated as the City of Lakes Community Land Trust (CLCLT) in August 2002 and acquired its 501(c)(3) status in August 2003.
The CLCLT hired its first staff person in October 2002. Current CLCLT staff consists of four employees (three full-time and one part-time). To date, the CLCLT has assisted over 130 low- and moderate-income households into CLCLT homeownership since the fall of 2004 and anticipates adding another 20-30 households over the next 18-24 months.
The mission of the CLCLT is to provide and foster stewardship of perpetually affordable home ownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income families throughout Minneapolis and is achieved through three major objectives, including:
• Assisting households that otherwise would never be able to purchase a home responsibly in having the ability to do so;
• Ensuring that, if and when the homeowner(s) decide to sell, the CLCLT is there to keep the home(s) affordable for other income-qualified households; and
• Provide support necessary for CLCLT homeowners be successful in homeownership.
Nationally, there are over 150 CLT’s, which work to create perpetually affordable housing while simultaneously balancing escalating housing market appreciation with the ability to meet housing needs for low- to moderate-income homebuyers.
CLT’s provide permanently affordable housing by owning the land of a particular property but selling the home on the land to an income-qualified buyer. The homeowner then leases the land from the CLT through a 99-year, renewable ground lease.
The ground lease connects the homeowner to the community and to keeping the house permanently affordable by including a resale formula that determines the home’s CLT sale price and the homeowner’s share of the home’s increased value at the time of sale.
This mechanism facilitates the initial investment made in the home by public and private subsidy sources remaining with the home to make it affordable to subsequent, income-qualified buyers.