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Citizens’ Lighthouse COMMUNITY LAND TRUST |
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CLCLT IS A MEMBER OF THE NETWORK FOR EVANSTON'S FUTURE |
Archived filesPanel shares histories
Mary Ellen Tamasy, who has been serving as the Executive Director of the Housing Opportunity Development Corporation (HODC) only since February of this year, was for four years prior the Executive Director of the first community land trust in our area, that of Highland Park. Our founders studied all aspects of the Highland Park CLT in depth when creating our own. Bill Howard is Executive Director of the West Humboldt Park Family and Community Development Council, and President of the first community land trust in the city of Chicago. Before he got into these organizations, he was Associate Director of UIC's Center for Urban Economic Development and served for 2 years as a techical consultant to the MacArthur Foundation's Program for Neighborhood initiatives. Kevin Jackson is Executive Director of the Chicago Rehab Network, a coalition of nonprofit housing developers and advocates working to create and preserve affordable housing in and around Chicago. Kevin has spent much time working on zoning and property tax reform issues, including the Donations Tax Credit, which since 2001 has generated $26 million annually in financing for new units. Ms. Tamasy reported that she'd had to hit the ground running when she came on board the HPCLT, because they already had the appropriate Zoning Ordinance and a Housing Trust Fund in place. She offerred some advice to our group, saying that she found a 10:4 ratio of homes for sale to units for rent seemed to work best for both the city and the clients. She also cautioned Citizens' Lighthouse to keep good track of "whom you've helped", such that you can keep City Council members aware of the fact that they are helping "real people". Mr. Howard spoke first about the national CLT network which Citizens' Lighthouse has joined. At the moment, it's an unstructured network for mutual support and help, rather than an organization, but there are already 55 members and it is exciting that it's growing. He then talked about the Humboldt Park land trust of which he is now Executive Director, pointing out that they started out in a very different position from Evanston, since there was a surplus of City-owned land in that area which they could automatically target. He also pointed out that there is another organization, called "New Homes for Chicago" which is developing and selling similarly to his land trust but which has no cap on resale prices, whereas the Humboldt Park Land Trust properties must be resold at 61% of AMI forever. In fact, all speakers stressed the importance of maintaining affordability over "generations" of ownership, a central feature of most, including our, CLTs. Someone in the audience asked about whether Evanston's many board-ups might be likely targets for acquisition, and another, who said he represented Reba Place Developments, pointed out that his organization has been struggling with the red tape involved with those for some time. Mr. Jackson spoke about how all affordable housing efforts dovetail. He described the Tax Relief for Homeowners project (his chief focus) as "project-based Section 8", in which the government incentivizes private owners to make their housing affordable, by compensating with tax deductions to make up for loss in selling price when selling to a nonprofit. Chicago Rehab Network has a website with much additional information. Presentations were followed by lively Q&A and discussion. office@citizenslighthouse.org |
At the Annual Meeting, three people who have "been there"
in developing community land trusts and other affordable
housing ventures shared their experiences with each other
and with the audience.