2015-08-18_HRA_Agenda_Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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10c. � _ � �` J S�,>. ��. �. �, r � . � .� .�-��, , o ;, � � �� n� "�. ��r�,� . � � ' � � ,� � � 'r � � - _ i�j ' • ,�#. : Fi�n�� "r� :,• , � i ��*�� ' �.'' i'�k � ' +�.i�.� _�� �.. x . ��C��, �'�- . . . ,� . fS:.. The answer could involve a greater role for local government, a prospect that makes some housing advocates wary. Over the past decade, municipalities have begun expressing greater interest in community land trusts as a means of stabilizing population or housing stock. In cities from Chicago to Flagstaff, local governments themselves have been initiating their own land trusts. (In both of those cities, land trusts were established in 2006.) This greater municipal buy-in has the potential to attract necessary resources to these efforts but also carries risks of its own. Community land trusts frequently have local political representation on their boards, but not in control of them. And as the histories of the nation's housing authorities have shown, direct local government control can carry a serious risk of opacity, corruption and patronage. Land trust experts like Jacobus fret that without a majority of community representatives on the board, these newfangled institutions will not be responsive to the interests of the neighborhoods. Instead they would prefer governments remain an outside partner, albeit a supportive one. In Dudley Square, the future will likely include more direct municipal government support. Community land trusts were identified as a means to "mitigate the impact of gentrification" in Mayor Marty Walsh's ambitious affordable housing plan, and the DSNI itself is in talks with city officials about a steady source of acquisition funds that could allow the land trust to compete with private developers for new parcels. For-profit or nonprofit partners will likely develop the lots, as long as the final product ends up on the land trust. For Correa, new houses can't be brought online fast enough. "People are always asking me, so, do they have any more houses, is anyone moving out," she says.