Columbia Community Land Trust picks board officers, sets rules
The Columbia Community Land Trust approved design standards for new homes to be built in the central city.
The CCLT met Tuesday night for its first meeting at Centro Latino, right next to the land on Lynn Street it hopes to build four new affordable homes. Five of the seven members chose officers, accepted by-laws and authorized the city of Columbia to put out a request for contractors to bid on the construction of the homes.
The city transferred four lots in central Columbia to the land trust, a group of city council appointees, last week. The CCLT will also work with $200,000 the city council dedicated to it in 2014. Community development specialist Randy Cole said $190,000 will help fund construction, while $10,000 will go towards legal and accounting services. The board still needs to work out how it will process applications to live in the homes or what the terms of the “ground lease” will entail.
Anthony Stanton, vice president of the board, said he initially was skeptical of a land trust in Columbia. The land trust, like many across the country, owns the parcel of land and sells the home. Board members hope to boost homeownership in central Columbia, allowing people to gain equity in buying the home. Cole said they are aiming to sell the homes for $95,000 to $105,000. Stanton said that home and land ownership are one of the main “vessels” of moving people out of poverty, but wasn’t sure how involved the government would be in Columbia’s land trust. By getting involved, he could help shape policy.
“How do we share the equity that’s in the land,” Stanton asked. “That’s where the value is.”
The city will offer two projects for contractors to bid on regarding the Lynn Street Cottages. One includes the 1,300 square foot homes. Each will come with three bedrooms and two bathrooms with a single-car garage. Each home will have solar power, which the city will bid separately. The city secured $40,000 in federal HOME funds for the solar project.
Stanton, a resident of the nearby Douglass Park neighborhood, said he hopes the Lynn Street Cottages keep the same character of the area. With a mix of low and middle-income residents, Stanton said he didn’t want to see the land trust bring gentrification to the area. The growth of living options downtown makes land around that area more valuable, Stanton said, and the land trust could help preserve affordable housing options to low-income people in Columbia.
“If we don’t have something that preserves the integrity of the existing neighborhood, preserves the existing housing stock, creates new housing stock that is affordable to the people that already live in this neighborhood, it’s going to disappear,” Stanton said.
Paul Prevo, co-owner of the Tiger Tots daycare, was elected president of the board, North Central Neighborhood Association president Dan Cullimore will serve as secretary and Alex LaBrunerie of LaBrunerie Financial will work as treasurer. The Columbia Chamber of Commerce will host the next CCLT meeting on Feb. 13 at 6 p.m.
ORIGINAL: The Columbia Community Land Trust will hold its first meeting Tuesday night to establish how it will operate.
The Columbia City Council transferred land it owned on Lynn Street in the central city for the CCLT to build and manage four new affordable homes.
The meeting will be held at Centro Latino, 609 N. Garth Avenue, at 7 p.m. A community land trust orientation meeting will take place at 6:30.
The seven-person board will discuss its by-laws, and approve design standards for the Lynn Street Cottages. The proposed standard calls for three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes on no more than 1,300 square feet of land.
