Community Land Trust Keeps Homes Affordable

Some residents who have been getting priced out of one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country have been turning to a decades-old housing practice that lets them own their own homes.

Community land trusts have boomed in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the nation. The Northern California Land Trust in Berkeley has developed 16 projects with 84 housing units over the last decade in Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond and San Francisco.

The land trusts buy land and fix the old homes that are there, or build new ones. They then sell the homes, typically to low-income buyers, but keep the land to prevent property costs from skyrocketing.