Working Papers

Can Leasing Public Land Be An Alternative Source of Local Public Finance?
Editor(s): Hong, Yu-Hung
Publication Date: January 1996
Governments of some former socialist countries and the People’s Republic of China are thinking of leasing, instead of selling, public land. One objective of land leasing is to capture the future increased land value as a government revenue for public infrastructure investment. Yet, the debate on whether or not public land leasing can help the state financially is unsettled because there is no generally agreed-upon criteria to assess the land-value-capture experience under public leasehold systems. The purpo...

Community Land Trusts and Low-Income Multifamily Rental Housing
Editor(s): Angotti, Tom
Publication Date: July 2007
Community land trusts have often promoted owner-occupied single-family housing in rural areas and small towns, but many CLTs have sizeable numbers of multifamily rental and cooperative units. As CLTs are engaged in a national dialogue about “scaling up” production, there is renewed interest in multifamily options in cities. This paper examines the costs and benefits of a multifamily project by..

The Community Land Trust as a Highway Environmental Impact Mitigation Tool
Editor(s): Bourassa, Steven C.
Publication Date: November 2005
The proposed Newtown Pike Extension in Lexington, Kentucky, has the potential to cause significant displacement of low-income residents. Following Executive Order 12898, which was signed in 1994, federal agencies have been required to consider environmental justice impacts of their policies and activities. Highway planners in Lexington have crafted a mitigation strategy that includes a...

The First Homes Community Land Trust
Editor(s): Packnett, Dwan
Publication Date: January 2006
The First Homes CLT is one tool of an impressive innovative work force housing program in Rochester Minnesota. Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation in 2001, First Homes was financed by a $4 million grant from the Mayo Clinic Foundation and three annual $1 million matching grants. Beginning with a below market interest gap loan program, First Homes added a community land trust...

A National Study of Community Land Trusts
Editor(s): Sungu-Eryilmaz, Yesim and Rosalind Greenstein
Publication Date: July 2007
This report presents the results of a survey carried out in 2006 of the 186 Community Land Trusts (CLTs) known to exist at this time. CLTs are used in the U.S. mainly to provide owner-occupied housing for low income households. Specifically, the report presents the results on the background, current activities, and practices of CLTs in the US. The primary purpose of the survey was to obtain...