Permanently Affordable Housing for Suburbia:
Toward a Scalable Model
With Community Land Trusts
New Directions Community-Based Research Institute
Robert J. Mulvey, Executive Director O. Andrew Collver, Research Director
July 16, 2007
From coast to coast, small towns and city governments are embracing community land trusts (CLT's) to promote and preserve affordable housing. They have done so by creating local CLTs to act as their partners, thereby re-charting the goals and roles of municipal government in this critical area. New Directions is positioned to design, develop and demonstrate how the CLT approach can also be effectively applied in a suburban region where centralized planning and control are firmly resisted and home rule is the norm. The communities of the Long Island region where we propose to develop this model are so fragmented and determinedly autonomous that it seems reasonable to say, to paraphrase a popular song, “If we can make it there we can make it anywhere.” Once the model has been demonstrated on Long Island, it will be available to be replicated in other suburbs across the country.
The Long Island Prototype
The 2.8 million residents of Long Island are distributed among 2 counties (Nassau and Suffolk), 13 Towns (3 in Nassau, 10 in Suffolk), 2 cities, 96 Villages (64 in Nassau County, 32 in Suffolk County), and 126 School Districts. Several of these localities have been identified as potential sites for the demonstration:
Village of Hempstead, Town of Hempstead, Nassau County
School District Community of Farmingdale, Town of Oyster Bay, Nassau County and Town of Babylon, Suffolk County
School District Community of South Country, Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County
Village of Patchogue/School District Community of Patchogue-Medford, Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County.
School District Community of Three Villages, Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County
Our goal is to bring three CLT's or clusters of adjoining CLT's into existence that will each have the ability, with the aid of corporate and other funding as well as local government grants of land and houses, to produce 400 homes within 4 years (fast track development). This number of homes will generate sufficient fees to engage professional and technical management services. A well-designed service organization could provide state-of-the-art support and operate without subsidy once the goal of 400 homes has been achieved. There are precedents for CLT's jointly owning a service organization in Portland, Oregon and in the State of Rhode Island
New Directions, with the support of Burlington Associates in Community Development, would undertake to design the Service Organization and its break-even analysis, cash flow and business model. The Board of Directors of this entity would include representation from the constituent CLTs (rotating), larger employers, hospitals, school districts, realtors and municipal officials. It would provide assurance to the Town and other possible conveyors of real estate, to investors in a possible Housing Trust fund, and to practitioners in the real estate development and management communities. This approach would attract corporate, municipal and personal investment into this new form of housing.
Specific action steps are as follows:
1. To initiate civic education programs in three separate areas with 100,000-120,000 inhabitants to prepare for the informed membership and competent leadership that will be needed for CLT's.
2. To facilitate ongoing (not ad hoc) partnerships between Civic organizations and local governments.
3. To organize a CLT in each school district community (or incorporated village if preferred) within each designated area.
4. To prepare a schedule of permanently affordable housing production in each 120,000-person cluster that will shortly provide over 400 permanently affordable homes.
5. To prepare a business model that shows several years of fee income and staff expense for each cluster based on assumptions of housing availability. These schedules, income and expense projects will be arranged to achieve early break-even for the individual management companies (say within 4 years of program initiation).
6. To, in this way, establish a civic-based third housing option in three Long Island locations, which is self-financing, expandable and replicable.
In a few years, this entity could begin to be expanded or replicated throughout the Long Island suburbs. Once it is established in a 100,000 person swath of the settlement, then there are approximately two dozen more areas of that size in the region.
Currently the most promising site is Village of Hempstead, with 70,000 residents including a large LMI population. The idea has gained preliminary support from the Nassau County Village Officials Association (NCVOA), where it is seen as a way to safeguard home rule powers. Mayor Wayne Hall is interested. Warren Tackenberg, E.D. of NCVOA, is actively promoting the idea, adding his currency. New Directions plans to invite all of the municipalities in both counties to consider the CLT model for their respective jurisdictions.
Shortly, New Directions, with Burlington Associates, will prepare a proposal to establish a Village of Hempstead CLT involving incorporation, tax exempt status, training, an assessment of housing needs and a plan for land acquisition to acquire or build 400 CLT homes in 4 years. This will set our stage and provide a model. County Executive Suozzi is an aggressive solver of problems and, if sold on an idea, will run with it. He has invested in conventional housing projects in the Village of Hempstead and we believe he will be well impressed with the results of this third option in housing. He wants to solve the problem.
In Suffolk County, the South Country Community Land Trust, formed with New Directions assistance, is expected to receive its first house soon and begin to increase its properties gradually. Just to their west is the Village of Patchogue, where the housing and community development director is interested in working with a CLT. In the Yaphank School District, just north of the South Country School District, County Executive Steve Levy is proposing a large development of perhaps as many as 2,000 housing units, some share of which could become CLT housing. To maintain the principle of home rule, it would be necessary to conduct a process of community organizing and citizen education in each of these places, develop public interest in having CLT's and recruit members to serve on the new boards. In the short run it may be easier to build housing from the top down, but in the long run only local control will support the goals of permanently affordable housing in response to community needs.
The future development of the Long Island suburbs may well involve active collaboration between shared-equity, not-for-profit CLTs and builders, whether local, regional or national. We say this because there are no more large tracts of rural land available for suburban sprawl. Developers will need to work in close proximity to existing neighborhoods to revitalize the existing settlement. In so doing they are likely to encounter strong opposition to conventional approaches that would increase housing density or provide homes for LMI families. If instead projects are planned in cooperation with community-controlled land trusts, local homeowner-taxpayers will have assurance that developments will serve the community's needs for housing and that they will remain under local management.
Thomas L. Sullivan, Real Estate Project Manager, at Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Systems Sector, has been advising New Directions from a corporate perspective on workforce housing. Tom has traveled to Cambridge, MA to hear the First Homes presentation at Lincoln Institute of Land Policy describing corporate investment in CLT housing in Rochester, MN. In addition, he traveled to Burlington, VT to visit John Davis and see the CLT development there. Amanda T. Brooks, Director of Summit Education Programs for CORENET Global, the corporate real estate trade association, has been in touch with Tom Sullivan and New Directions to present a workshop on CLTs at a future CoreNet Summit. Locally, Tom is arranging meetings for New Directions with innovative builders/developers to discuss strategic arrangements for partnering with a score of successful CLTs.
The New Directions Civic Renewal Team
PROFESSIONAL STAFF:
Robert J. Mulvey, Esq., Executive Director. Member, Nassau County Bar Association, active in their Municipal Law and Environmental Committees. Former Acting City Manager, Yonkers, NY, and Professor of Planning, Law and Finance, C.W. Post College, LIU.
O. Andrew Collver, Ph.D., Research Director. Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Stony Brook University, SUNY.
Sibyl O'Reilly Mizzi, Ph.D., Community-Government Relations Advisor. Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, Dowling College. Former Housing Director, Town of Babylon.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Michelle DiBenedetto, Chair. Citibank, V.P. for Long Island Government and Community Affairs.
Linda McCabe-Oristano, Vice Chair. President and CEO, American Patriot Glass. Marketing and public relations executive. Served as Exec. Dir., Nassau County Special Olympics.
Howard Banker, Secretary. V.P. for Special Projects, Bank of New York Mortgage Corp. Former Executive Director, Low Income Housing Fund.
Richard P. Dina, DSW., Treasurer. Adelphi University, Senior Advisor for University Advancement. Former President and CEO, Family and Children's Association.
Paul Arfin, MSW, CSW. President and CEO, Intergenerational Strategies.
Frances Campani, R.A. Assoc. Prof. of Architecture, NYIT. Partner, Schwarting and Campani, Architects.
Paul D'Ascoli. President & CEO, P.A. D'Ascoli & Co., Inc. Financial Consultant and Operations Analyst. Consultant, National Credit Union Foundation on Homeownership Counseling.
David J. Flatley, Assistant Superintendent, Carle Place Union-Free School District; President – Association Supervision and Curriculum Developers (LIASCD).
Sibyl O'Reilly Mizzi, Ph.D. Adjunct Assoc. Prof. of Social Anthropology, Dowling College. Former Housing Director, Town of Babylon.
David Sprintzen, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Long Island University. Secretary & Founder, L.I. Progressive Coalition.
ACADEMIC ASSOCIATES
Professors Michael Schwarting and Frances Campani, School of Architecture, New York Institute of Technology
AFFILIATES, PARTNERS, NATIONAL RESOURCES--a growing network of affiliates interested in contributing to the development of a strong civic sector on Long Island
Building Civic Capacity.
For community land trust:
Neighborhood Realty Services, Paul D'Ascoli, CEO and President.
Burlington Associates in Community Development.
For civic education program:
David Flatley, Asst. Supt., Carle Place Union Free School District.
Intergenerational Strategies, Paul Arfin, President and CEO
Area universities.
Community Studies.
Community Insight, O. Andrew Collver, Ph.D., Director.
NYIT School of Architecture.
LIU Dept. of Environ. Science.
Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare.
Marketing and Dialogue.
Community Networking and Circles Associates, Jack Dumas, Ph. D., and Linda McCabe-Oristano, Co-Directors.
Study Circles Resource Center.