Land trust for Blaine County?

At his final Ketchum Housing Commission meeting last Tuesday, chairman Ed Simon said his post-commission sights are set on forming a private, community land trust to promote affordable housing within Blaine County.

Simon, a Ketchum attorney, is proposing a private corporation independent of city influence or control.

The private, nonprofit trust, according to Simon, offers more attractive tax incentives to potential donors than does a public one.

"From a tax write-off perspective it’s a better option," he said.

Although land would be owned by the trust, the Blaine County Housing Authority could be tapped to develop affordable units on the land.

"Ultimately this will benefit the cities and the county, but they don’t possess the land certainly," Fulmer said.

According to housing coordinator Karl Fulmer, a community land trust is a nonprofit corporation that acquires land through grants, donations or outright purchases, and removing it from the conventional real estate market.

Once removed, a trust builds homes on the land and then sells them at an affordable rate. Money obtained through fundraising allows the trust to subsidize the below-market prices of the units.

The homeowner pays a ground lease each month to the trust, which retains ownership of the land. The lease runs for 99 years.

The advantage of this is twofold, according to documents. One, the trust owns the land, but because the lease is so lengthy, the buyer is still eligible for financing from a bank. And two, the land is safe from being thrown back into the sea of market rates.

People who apply to lease land from a trust are generally screened for income, employment and length of residence in the area the trust serves. Legally, lease holders have the same security as people who own their land outright.

More than 70 community land trusts operate around the country, according to Blaine County Commissioner Len Harlig.

One was formed in Jackson, Wyo., in 1990 by a group of concerned citizens who lived, worked, and had grown up in the area.

A trust is an economic vehicle, but in the case of Jackson Hole, was formed in response to a housing crisis that challenged the entire social fabric of the community, said Sara Carroll, director of project management for the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust.

"People spent a very long time researching what it would take to get it going," Carroll said. "It’s admirable. The reason they did it was for their community--for their neighbors."

It seems Jackson Hole’s connections with the Sun Valley area run deeper than mere proximity on a map.

"Land’s not getting any cheaper, and they’re not making anymore of it," Carroll said. "We don’t want somebody throwing it over and taking it out of the affordable pool."

The town of Jackson and Teton County adopted affordable housing regulations in 1995. Local government and willing residents played a substantial role in the development of the 51 units the Jackson trust controls.

The fund raising for the Jackson trust is a grass roots effort. Gifts have ranged from $5 to an anonymous $100,000 donation. And although land donations have been invaluable thus far, it would be bad business to rely on them, Carroll said.

"We operate under the premise that people are not going to give us land. If they do, great," she said.

Acquiring funds or actual parcels of land is still off on the horizon for the proposed Blaine County Land Trust, but according to Simon, the ball is rolling.

Simon’s first step is to find five to nine volunteers to serve on its board of directors, he said. Once he has the man power, the board can jump through the necessary state and federal hoops to become an official corporation.

"Once it gets going I’d like to keep it going," said Simon.

The tentative timeline is to have the inaugural board meeting in July.