Business Record
Kathy A. Bolten
A community land trust, whose goal is to provide long-term affordable housing in communities, is expected to fully launch in Central Iowa by late 2025 with initial work underway to acquire properties.
“Ultimately, the land trust is just another tool in the community’s toolbox that allows permanent affordability,” said Carrie Woerdeman, executive director of Home Inc., a nonprofit whose mission is increasing homeownership opportunities for residents in Central Iowa.
A workforce housing study released in mid-2019 showed that Polk County needed to add more than 55,000 new housing units by 2038 to accommodate Central Iowa’s expected population. Owner-occupied housing made up 60% of the needed new units, the study said.
Following the study’s release, a community group began studying the feasibility of creating a land trust. With support from the city of Des Moines, a consultant was hired and an advisory committee was formed. The committee recommended the formation of the Central Iowa Community Land Trust. So far, the Central Iowa trust has adopted bylaws and articles of incorporation and is in the process of finalizing its nonprofit status.
Dozens of affordable housing units have been added in Central Iowa in recent years, many through the use of tax credits or city incentives. Typically, those units are rented at affordable rates only during the duration the incentives are in place, Woerdeman said. When the incentives expire, the units usually are rented at market rates.
“In my mind, affordable housing is a bucket,” Woerdeman said at a recent housing symposium. “We feed affordable units into the top of the bucket. At the bottom of the bucket there is a hole where affordable units are coming out.”
Community land trusts are a way to diminish the hole’s size, she said.
