To talk to us about some work that's being done in the community at large around a community land trust.

So I will hand it over to you guys.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for having us.

Um my name is Lisa Pinkney, and I'm executive director of the Footprint Foundation.

We are a family foundation that has been doing grant making since about 2013.

And since 2016, we have made um we have had a program in place called the Buzz.

You're going to hear that at some point now or maybe in the future, so I'm making sure you understand what that is.

But it's a program that we developed to create relationships and deepen relationships with the nonprofits that we do work with.

So it was meant to be an investment in talent.

Um over the years we have about 80 people that are part of what we call the Buzz Network now.

And post-COVID, we invited this group of people to work with us to uh determine how they might spend grant dollars if if it were rally to them.

So we made a commitment of four million dollars over five years to the Buzz community and had 25 of those uh community members uh work together for a co-creation process to determine how they would they would actually spend those dollars.

And one of the things that came out of that was a strategy that they call economic stability and a tactic using a community land trust to address uh housing affordability.

Uh we finished that work June of 24, if I remember correctly, it's been a long time and a really rich and rewarding process.

Um, and one of the first things that we set out to do was to engage a consultant that would help us determine what that work actually would look like, how something like a CLT model could actually work in our community, uh how it could be made to fit our community.

That's not cookie cutter, we're not looking to create a model that Atlanta has or Memphis has.

You want something that's uniquely Chattanooga.

And so we contracted with Grounded Solutions, who's one of the leading consultants in community land trust work to help us figure that out.

So we just finished up our first phase of work, which is largely educational.

We had a very small small working group, uh, just to make sure that the folks that were initially interested from a Buzz Network and some other community partners understood that community land trust 101, understood what it was, some of the things we might want to think about as we think about implementing something here.

Um, but we're just getting the work started.

Uh, phase two of this work will entail a larger uh community group that will provide input again to create and design what a community land trust could look like.

Um with that, uh this is the first time that we actually have met uh grounded solutions actually in person.

We've been meeting every two weeks for the last six months again for learning opportunities.

Uh and so we're actually meeting in the flesh, and we thought that while they were here in town, we wanted to get them in front of as many people as possible to make sure that the community was aware that these conversations were happening.

Uh, this will not be the only opportunity that you'll hear from us.

I'm sure we're hoping that there'll be many other opportunities to do that.

Uh, this is one of I think maybe six or seven meetings we've got planned these next three days.

We met with the mayor this morning.

Um we've got some folks meeting with the county mayor right now.

We'll have a public session uh with faith leaders this evening, a public session tomorrow with the general public at the library, and so we're here today just to share some more there's no ask.

It is uh strictly informational.

And so Jason Webb from Grounded Solutions is gonna talk uh a little bit about the work that Grounded Solutions does and then share with you some of that CLT 101 that we've been uh receiving over the last few months.

Thank you.

Uh my name is Jason Webb.

I am the community and technical assistants principal at Grounded Solutions Network.

Come to this work with about 40 years of experience working with CLTs all throughout the country.

Uh so for me and the organization, we work nationally.

So we work with local experts, all of you uh know your communities better than what we do, but what we bring our solutions that we know have work and can work in a number of different communities throughout the country.

Here is a little map.

We have now touched about a hundred different communities all throughout the U.S.

Uh, you know, big, small, conservative, uh, more liberal communities all throughout the United States.

We have we have worked.

A little bit of the roots of the community land trust is and we a few years ago went ahead and mapped this model because this model is about 54 plus years old here in the United States.

Now, while this slide breaks all of the rules of PowerPoint, because you're not supposed to put this much on one slide.

The important thing to pick out are really the movements, because there are a number of different movements that had a profound effect on the founders of our model.

So when you think about the US peace movement, when you think about the single tax movement, even when you think about the Grandam movement over in India, all of these movements had a profound impact on the founders of the CLT uh model here in the United States that came out of the U.S.

civil rights movement.

So our story starts in 1968, where there was an American delegation, and here are a few on the screen that actually traveled over to Israel and they traveled to Israel because they were looking for a new type of land ownership model.

Because one of the things that was the challenge here in the American South, especially in Georgia, was that African American farmers were not able to stay on their land.

They were being pushed off of their land.

So they actually came across the Mushaw model, which combined individual homesteads with cooperative farming on lease land.

Now this American delegation came back the very next year in 1969 and established new communities incorporated, which is the first community land trust here in the United States.

In the 70s, we saw the community land trust go from an agricultural model into the urban setting and predominantly really focusing on affordable housing.

We saw that even be a little bit turbocharged in the 80s because this is where a number of governments and cities started to go ahead and invest in this model in helping a number of them get created predominantly in the Northeast.

Today we have over 350 community land trusts throughout the entire country.

We're in 46 states plus the District of Columbia and in Puerto Rico.

There has been over 30,000 units built using this model.

We have seen amazing growth in the 90s, and we're seeing amazing growth now.

Some of the basics of this model is really to define what is a community land trust.

The founders believe that a community land trust are nonprofit organizations governed by a board of CLT residents, community residents, and public reps that provide lasting community assets and shared equity homeownership opportunities for families and communities.

Now, what we have seen over these years is that CLTs stop certain trends from happening.

One is the housing hamster wheel, and the housing hamster wheel is this notion that we have put a lot of time energy into creating more housing, especially affordable housing, and we always seem to be at a deficit.

We're not really going anywhere.

The next is this leaky bucket in affordable housing.

Millions of dollars have been poured into affordable housing over the years, but we always continue to be at this deficit where we allow for that money to just be taken away and lost to the market.

Now, the community land trust uses a dual ownership structure where the individual will own the home, the community land trust owns the land.

A 99-year ground lease is what ties the improvements and the land together.

Now, this ground lease does three critical things.

It outlines the rights and responsibilities of the homeowner, it outlines the rights and responsibilities of the community land trust, and it sets up the resale restrictions so that this home can now be permanently affordable for generations to come.

The idea of permanent affordability is a simple equation.

We're going to lower the price of the home initially compared to the market.

At the time that somebody wants to sell their home, we're going to keep the price lower again compared to the market, so that it can be affordable for another homeowner.

And we feel like that we can keep doing this over and over again with the same home and bring multiple families through that home.

Our stats say that community land trust home ownership tenure is about seven years.

Families live in community land trust home for seven years, and then they have built up enough equity to be able to go into the market.

And you'll see in a little bit, we've taken some data from Chaganooga to show that previously your area did not necessarily have an affordability gap.

In some years, it was actually the same price, or it was even more than what people could afford.

Now we're seeing affordability gaps that are continuing to increase year after year.

For example, when we're thinking about the traditional model of affordable housing, one of the traditional models is to do a down payment assistance program.

So this is what we would consider to be a DPA program.

The market price of a home is 200,000.

The family can only afford 155,000, so we need to bring 45,000 to the table.

So we structure a down payment assistance program, we give it maybe a 10-year limit on it, where after 10 years they can sell it for whatever the market will bear.

Well, 10 years later, in this hypothetical community, the market price jumped to 240,000.

And because we did not protect that 45,000 for more than 10 years, that's how much the family can go ahead and sell that property for.

So this family gets an above market rate of return on their investment.

They get the 40,000 of market appreciation, and they get the 45,000 of public resources that we initially put into the deal.

But when we think about these models, we think about it from what happens for the second family that comes along.

So this second family comes along and their buying affordability has gone up, but not has gone up to what the market price is.

So they can afford $185,000.

So that means that we have to find $55,000 new dollars to help a second family.

When we compare this to a community land trust model, here is where it is different.

And the biggest difference is in the sales price.

Because we take the $45,000 and we write down the sales price to what the family can actually afford.

Now in 10 years, the market is still going to increase, but we put a restrictive formula on this property and allowed them 2% of a fixed rate appreciation every year that they're in the home.

So that means that after 10 years, they'll be able to sell the home for $185.

$55,000 of equity stays in the home to help the next family, and $30,000 goes to that homeowner.

Now, when we're thinking about the second family, $185 is exactly what this new buyer can actually afford, and that's what the sales price would be.

Now I would say that this is magic, a really good program design.

I'm a consultant, so I say really good program design.

But but the way that we create our fixed rate formulas is we look at the historic trends of wage growth, and we try to peg that towards the wage growth that we have seen historically.

So $55,000 of equity is now sitting in this home to help future families to be able to afford it.

Another example that we love to show is actually a real life example from a community land trust that back in 1998 they were working with an individual making $13,000.

They were able to come up with about $1,100 in a cash-down payment.

They were able to, based on what they were making, they should have been renting at $475 a month.

That's roughly about 30% of their gross income should go towards their housing.

But there were no units at that price.

So they had to rent at a $700.

So they were already rent-burdened.

Less than what they would have even been renting at at an affordable rate.

Now, any math whiz would be like, wait a minute, the math is not mathing.

If they bought it for $95,000, stayed in it for 20 years, why are they paying off $90, the important thing is that in the 10 years in, they were able to refinance and take out some of their equity.

So that's why you would see a mortgage payoff probably a lot larger than if they were just paying for those straight 20 years without tapping into any of their equity.

They had closing cost.

We also had deferred repairs.

Now with inside the community land trust, community land trust won't allow a property to transfer to another buyer unless it's in good condition.

So those repairs needed to come out of her out of her equity.

So she was able to walk away with a cashier's check of 40,200.

Now, let's remember when we're thinking about wealth creation, we want to think about okay.

She was able to walk away with 40,000, but she only put down 1,100.

Now I would love for my 401k to give me these types of returns.

But we also have to remember that she had 450 monthly payments.

She was also able to see a $51,010 in rent savings compared to if she just kept on.

And the funny thing about the $51,000 is when we did the analysis, we did it straight line.

We didn't even account for any for the increase for the increase year after year that you probably see in rents.

Plus, what this also shows is the $40,000 in cash.

So we feel like she got a $91,300 financial benefit from just being in the CLT.

Now let's also remember that this does not count on any personal raises she got at her job, anything that she may have bettered herself.

This is just on her real estate transaction.

So, but let's take a look at what the second family gets.

So again, this family in 2021, they're making $37,000.

Their fair market rent is over $2,000 a month.

So they were able to buy the same home, and their mortgage payment got slashed by pretty much half.

So they were able to get a mortgage payment of a little bit over $1,000.

So every month they're saving $1,000 being in this community land trust home.

Now, one of the historical things, and you know, I bring up this chart that really shows the orange line is really the medium home sales price.

And this blue line is just your family at 100% of the area median income.

Now you will see that this orange line touches a few of the other lines, which again, the black line is a family at 80%, the green line is a family at 60%.

As what I said earlier, you know, 10 years ago, your median home price, there was no affordability gap.

But now you can see 10 years later that you actually have an affordability gap of a family at 100% of over $80,000.

So again, when we're thinking about investments and we're thinking about how do we create affordable housing and for who, we want to make sure that we can protect these investments because to make these numbers work, you would either have to figure out how to change the market price and get a product that's cheaper, or you would need to bring the affordability gap, which are the subsidy dollars to the table for a family of four at 100% of the area median income for them to be able to afford to buy that home.

So the idea of a community land trust also stems from a idea that the community land trust is in a 99-year relationship with these homeowners for as long as they want to live in the home, there's a relationship there.

So the community land trust has responsibilities that are permanent, and they do stewardship.

They do stewardship of the homes to make sure that they're in good condition.

We make sure that we're stewarding the homeowners to make sure that they are using this financial asset to the best of their ability and wisely.

And the third is when public funds are available, we are also and private funds, we are also making sure that those subsidy dollars don't just help one family but multiple families.

So just a quick two-minute recap on what a community land trust is, and then I would love to open it up for questions.

Community land trusts or CLTs are nonprofit organizations that acquire, own and steward land permanently for the common good.

The most common CLT land use is housing.

The retail office and a variety of other uses are possible.

CLTs give formal decision-making voice and power to local community residents in determining land uses.

Here's how CLTs make homebuying affordable for families in their communities.

First, the CLT builds or buys homes using one-time public or private investment.

Next, the CLT sells just the home to a low-income buyer who qualifies for a mortgage.

And the CLT keeps the land, holding it in trust for future generations of home buyers.

In return for being able to buy a home at a discounted price, the family agrees to pay it forward and sell to another low-income family at a price they can afford.

The CLT manages the sales process, ensuring that each homebuying family builds some wealth from a predetermined limited amount of the sales proceeds.

In this way, the one-time public or private investment in CLT homes makes lasting affordability a reality and stabilizes communities.

And CLTs benefit the larger community too, as they preserve and protect housing for long-term residents, helping to build stronger, safer, and higher quality, diverse neighborhoods, contributing to greater educational attainment, employment opportunities, and health outcomes.

Visit grounded solutions.org to learn more about CLTs today.

So one of the things that I wanted to highlight is that governments have been able to help community land trust to either get started or to continue doing the work that they do.

Today I actually brought just a few copies of the preserving affordable homeownership study that the Lincoln Land Institute for Land Policy conducted, along with some policy briefs from that same study.

Also, the National League of Cities also created their own playbook that really walks through how municipalities can help community land trusts thrive and to be able to protect the affordable homeownership opportunities that the city is investing in.

And lastly, I just want to just highlight too what Lisa talked about is where we are in the process.

So right now we're just wrapping up education, feasibility, exploring this uh option.

Our our next phase of work is really our program design, what we hope to launch and support this new community land trust.

And traditionally it's a timeline of about six to twelve months that that take all of these different components in into consideration.

So with that, I want to thank you guys and ask what what are your questions?

Please.

Councilman Elliott.

Followed by Councilman Harvey.

Was that a raise here?

Oh, it's itching, but yes.

I'll take that.

Thank you all for uh uh bringing us for it.

You know, Michael and Caleb presented this to a lot of folks who are running for office this past cycle, and I had learned about CLTs pretty extensively through that process.

I heard about it before, but you know, we're thinking about a community that is struggling with affordability, you know, this locks in homes for an extended amount of time, which I think is a plus.

Um, because I don't think we can expect to wake up 10 years from now and our affordability uh question is gone.

But here's the thing I will uh one question I have, then I have a statement I want to make.

The 99 years, does it restart after the sale of the home?

Yes, so every time that somebody buys the home that 99 year restarts, the only trouble that we would have from what the lawyers have said to me.

We sell it to a one-year-old and they turn to be a hundred.

Then we have a problem.

But outside of that, everybody that goes into that ownership structure, even their heirs go ahead and get a new 99-year ground lease.

Okay, perfect.

Um the only thing I want to say, and I think this is a larger conversation, is you know, Chattanooga has had its experiences with affordable housing before.

And I love the concept of this.

I want to see how we can support it, especially if it's stood up properly.

What does it look like for the city to invest, whatever, maybe resources or even assets to go towards this, right?

Um I want the community as a whole, but also the partners to hear we have to be incredibly mindful and thoughtful how we present this to the community, how it's set up.

We have had issues in the past where community members have had have gone through affordable housing programs and those houses have been ripped from under their feet, right?

And there hasn't been a ton of reconciliation around some of that.

And so as we are bringing in this new topic, and I want to be particular, this is happening, especially in our black communities.

Absolutely.

And as we bring in this topic of what does this look like and bringing affordability to people, I want to make sure whatever the setup is, it not only provides a reassurance for taxpayer resources, right?

But also that we don't repeat the errors of the past.

Absolutely.

So those are the big things I want to leave with you all from this conversation.

Yeah.

But I'm excited about it.

I'm really excited about the next steps.

I'm excited to see how the structures laid out to benefit everybody.

And I would love to see how the city can do its part to support this.

Yeah.

And to that point around like the foreclosure crisis that we know hit a lot of our black and brown communities throughout the country.

When when you think about the national average of mortgages and default at that time was hovering around 5%.

In the community land trust, we were at.0.5% in defaults.

And it was predominantly because of this ground lease that really protected folks from trying to do these teaser rate mortgages that the community land trust basically said to those homeowners, I'm sorry, we can't allow for those types of products on this land because we know after six months, after 12 months, that interest rate's gonna go sky high, and you may not be able to afford that home anymore.

So and if I could, Madam Chair, is my last statement.

As we think about this the legality around it, what reassurances are provided to the tenants to make sure that for God forbid anything happens to the CLT, this gets sold off.

That's right, and they're left with their feet pulled from under the devil without a home.

Absolutely.

We're gonna have to figure out because that was a big problem in our past.

Yep.

And so that's something we're gonna have to close the loop on to make sure we're able to lock in community trust going forward.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Councilman Harvey.

So I have a question related to uh home values.

So let's say uh, so how does number one, how does the assessor of property in the county uh handle that?

So if if you if I live in an area that is saturated by these CLT homes, and I want to sell my home, how does that affect the value of my home that I own the both the land and the home on?

Exactly.

Uh how do I, because I of course I want equity in my home, so how does that affect home values?

So the great thing is that there's actually federal regulations around appraisals on community land trust homes.

So when when you think about the two largest enterprises for mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack, they have created guidelines that the appraisers need to go ahead and adhere to.

And if they don't adhere to, then their licenses can be in jeopardy.

And the way that these regulations basically, you know, go is that your for your home, uh, an appraiser cannot use a community land trust home as a comparative.

Okay.

So because we are intentionally lowering that price to meet where that homeowner is, again, the appraisers, and this is a part of the work of launching this is we're going to need to educate the appraisers, make sure that they know what resources they have at their disposal, like the National Appraisal Institute that trains appraisers, they have a course that we developed with them on community land trust appraisals.

So it's a common question that comes up a lot because we understand we're going to be going into communities that already have existing homeowners that already have some built-up equity.

We don't want that equity to be in jeopardy.

Okay, very good.

Um the second question is uh how do you go about acquiring land and then who how do you go about constructing the homes?

Because so much of what uh is causing such a high cost of living right now is the construction of the home supplies are so expensive.

So how does it work?

Yeah, so a lot of community land trusts have partnerships with municipalities around what are the land assets that the municipality owns.

How is the how is that being disposed of?

Is there a priority around lasting affordability?

And usually community land trusts check that box.

Um, so I know of a lot of CLTs, and actually in the study it points to a number of municipalities that have either donated or have put out RFPs for land and prioritize you need to make sure that this is in a community land trust.

So that's one way, and then when it comes to the development, we from a community land trust perspective, the CLT doesn't necessarily do development, it's not what it's really set up for.

It's set up to work with experienced developers that would actually come to the table and work with them on getting the product in at a certain price point.

So we have some CLTs that are doing a lot more modular because that is where they're seeing a lot of savings.

And then we have other CLTs like the one that I operated for a few for a few decades.

That CLT worked with a private developer, and that private developer felt like it was in his best interest from a social standpoint to go ahead and lend his skills to the CLT because it was a tax-exempt organization and be able to get a donation back.

Okay.

Councilmember, thank you, chairwoman.

Um the first question, remind me, Lisa, how how are you guys connected?

What's the connection between grounding solutions and footprint?

But we are the foundation that is paying grounded to do their work.

So you would be the local organization that they would work with to help create these CLTs.

Well, and we're also working with some other community partners as well.

C and E right now has played a role in helping convene us as we have our bi-weekly meetings for the education sessions.

And so but yes, footprint will play a large role.

And then also we've got this network of you know, 25 uh community members too that are they get paid, but they're semi-volunteering their time to make the work out.

Okay, cool.

Um regarding the CLTs and kind of detect onto what you're saying, how do how is the property impacted when there it are reappraisals?

Like we just had these reappraisals this past year, and everybody's property values, your their appraisals doubled.

Yeah.

So how does that impact?

It sounds like the people that are in a CLT to some extent everything's frozen while they're in that program, but what happens when property values go up because of appraisals, reappraisals?

Yeah, it's a great question, and unfortunately it is uh state by state.

There are some states that have actually passed legislation that talks about the taxation of community land trust land, that it should be taxed on the resale restricted value of that property.

Okay, because again, they're not going to be able to achieve that price when they go ahead and sell it, that that's what is being taxed at.

So that is something that we would take a look at.

We would uh through a lot of my work throughout the country, I talk with a lot of assessors, I try to explain to them that if there is a legal agreement in place that caps this valuation that this homeowner cannot, is there anything that the assessor can look at to acknowledge that this is a legally binding contract?

And a lot of assessors, as long as they're not prohibited by law, look at that and say, No, that's a legal argument that I can that I can stake myself on.

Do you all work with legislators to if there are laws that need to be enacted?

We do.

We have a whole policy team at grounded solutions network, and actually our policy um principal is actually located right in Nashville.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's all I had.

Cool.

Councilwoman by Chairwoman.

Okay.

Hi, thank you.

I came in a few minutes late, so I'll apologize for that.

So just a couple of questions.

Um what part does C and E play in this in this whole thing?

So, from what we've looked at from a feasibility standpoint, C and E brings a number of skills to the table from their development experience.

Um, we are actually, as we're thinking about this, this would be an independent organization that would have a board of directors that again see C and E is very supportive of this idea, and that we would look at C and E from a staffing perspective.

Can we leverage some of the staffing that they already have so that we're not recreating the wheel?

Okay, so who would have the say so as to who those board of directors would be for C and E over this land?

That is still yet to be determined in terms of who's going to be on the board right now.

The model calls for a tripartite board where we have seats that are reserved for the public, we have seats that are reserved for community members, and then we have seats that are reserved for folks that are actually living on the lease land of the community land trust.

So is it a possibility that those that no longer work with C and E would have an opportunity to come back and have a part in this?

Not that I know of.

What do you mean by that?

Uh, if if someone no longer works with C and E, they're no longer affiliated with C and E.

But if, for instance, this board that you're going to, you're talking about pulling things together with anyone from the past be allowed to past staff member be allowed to come back and see it on that board.

So traditionally, community land trusts have what's called a membership governing structure which allows for members to pick who those board members are.

So it's a very much democratically focused process of when you think about those community members, that those community members would be duly elected by the members of the or organization.

But to your question without specifics, I I can't answer a high uh hypothetical.

The only thing that I could say is if somebody uh from the past wants to come back and throw their hat in the ring to be a board member, then they would have to follow the entire process all the way through.

Okay, so what are you actually, or what would you be looking for from the city?

Right now it's just about knowledge sharing, it's about let letting you all know that we're on this journey.

Um as of right now, we don't have an actual ask.

Okay.

Have you all okay?

Um last question.

Have you all had a conversation with um our housing person, Ms.

Nicole Hyman?

Yes, we met with Nicole and the mayor this morning.

Okay.

And presented the same slide deck to them.

Okay, so I would like to meet with you because I'm curious to see what your thoughts are.

Yes, ma'am.

On this, I mean you could say now if you like, or you want to do it one-on-one.

Thank you for the question.

Okay.

I we're learning along with uh everybody in the room today.

So we're we're grateful for the presentation.

We met uh with council member Dotley and Lisa and the group um a few weeks ago, we met with the mayor this morning.

We've seen the same presentation that you have, so I I'm happy to meet.

I don't have any answers because we're still in the learning phase.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

That's all.

Okay, I I I would say that folks also have concerns.

Please let us know because again, we don't know what we don't know.

So if there if there are some third rails that we need to be mindful of, then that's good for us to know.

Yeah.

That's some concerns with me, especially when it comes to C and E.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Councilman Davis, do you have any questions?

No.

Okay.

Can we go back to the uh the timeline slide?

What the process is okay.

Um you made you made a point in the either in the video or in the presentation that so my understanding is that community land trusts most often are used as a home ownership tool.

Correct.

Which is fantastic.

We need to close that home ownership gap desperately in in Chattanooga.

Um but I thought it was interesting that you said also some land trusts have a retail component, a rental component, and I believe I've also heard about like community use like municipal component.

Can you give us some examples of well and also Lisa?

You mentioned there's going to be a faith leader meeting tonight.

Can you give us some examples of like how retail has worked in a community land trust before?

And then also what kind of success stories you've seen with faith communities participating in land trusts.

That's very interesting to me.

Yeah, absolutely.

So from my own personal experience, I've done uh two rental projects on a community land trust.

One was a mixed use where we had about 5,000 square feet of storefront retail space uh uh, you know, below um apartments.

Okay.

The community land trust came in, and because we own the land and we worked with a developer that actually owned the building, uh, we were able through the ground lease say to that developer, these are the retail uses that we will only accept for these spaces.

Um because in our community we saw too many liquor stores at the time there was a lot of cash checkers, there were some chiropractors, and we said we don't want any of that.

So we actually put within side of our ground lease a prohibition that basically said to that building owner, you cannot rent to these to these uses.

Anyone else were more than happy to um hear from, but these ones are prohibited.

The the other project that I did was that we actually transformed a former citizens bank building where they were disinvesting, downsizing in the community, they were able to donate a 10,000 square foot commercial building to us, and we turned it into an artist space and to a nonprofit center.

So those are two where again we were able to get donations as a nonprofit, able to leverage um philanthropic and city economic development dollars to be able to make all of those things work.

And so the land trust, because the land is held in the trust, that supports the long-term affordability of those spaces.

Correct.

That's interesting because I makes me connect some dots with as we've been discussing the stadium program and the development around that.

We have a developer who has said that they have a they have a commitment to having retail spaces potentially subsidized for local businesses.

But that is solely based on their desire to do that.

There's no requirement of that.

So when I think about some of the corridors where we know, I mean, even in our downtown corridor where we would love to see local small businesses, and we've we're gonna be voting on a facade grant, things like that.

But it's interesting to think about holding some retail space, and also we have areas in our community that have a real need for better grocery stores or any grocery store for that matter.

And I wonder if that and like thinking about improving our library footprints and our um our community centers, you know, are there opportunities to take dilapidated community centers and add community center library and then how I don't know, I start dreaming kind of big.

So what about um church or faith faith-based connections?

What kind of success stories have you seen with that?

So the the faith-based community, I would say probably over the past five years has been uh a new area for the community land trust.

The great thing is that with inside of the roots of the community land trust, there have been so many religious leaders that have helped to start this model through through throughout the country.

So when we think about you know the mission alignment, when we think about the leveraging of the asset, uh, when we think about the permanence of the asset that they may have.

Um, right now I'm actually working with two churches, one in Lancey, Michigan, the other one in Lynchburg, Virginia, to actually go ahead and transfer those those assets into a community land trust where the community land trust will build housing, and out of both of these uh churches, their biggest thing is that they need housing for some of their practitioners.

So those folks are gonna have the first right to actually purchase 20% of either of these units that are going to be developed.

Okay.

So we've made a preference for them where again 20% of those units are for the congregation of the church to be able to buy.

And so those so those are purchase units.

Yes, those are purchase units.

Yeah, I just think about when when Councilman Harvey asked the question of about land, one of our greatest sources of holders of land in this buckle of the Bible Belt is our churches.

It is your churches, and obviously, church participation has changed how people how people participate in things, and and I think we have fewer churches that need to expand and more churches that have purchased land around them that we've had some neat things happening around you know, building housing for people transitioning out of foster care, for example.

You know, now they're an adult, and and we've we've got that.

We have we have organizations in town who are helping women overcome homelessness, and yet now there is no housing on the other side of that for them to graduate into.

So I and we've had we've had a handful of churches who have been working for years now, and you're really dedicated to this, and we just we need a domino to fall.

You know, we've got we've got some great ideas out there and just making the numbers work.

Yeah, um, so I I did hear recently that on Monday you guys announced the partnership with Enterprise.

Yeah.

And we are working currently right now with Enterprise in a number of different cities, and we've teamed up with their faith base so that we can actually share more information on how do we keep these things permanent.

Great.

Because we don't want to put all this effort into transforming all these assets of these churches, and then all of a sudden, 20 years, it's all lost to the market.

Right, right.

Well, and and as a municipality, you know, as we look at as we look at pilots for affordable housing, um, LITEC deals, which we know don't really come together very often in Chanuga, um, and then also our our down payment assistant program, all of them are fleeting.

Yeah, um, you know, a 10-year affordability or uh even a 15-year, it's gone.

It's gone.

And when I think about what we've witnessed in the gap that has been created between affordability and like that $50,000 subsidy, that small program we had, sort of like winning the lottery, right?

To be the one that gets in line that finds a house that gets the $50,000 subsidy that one time.

Like it's amazing for that one family.

But I would like for us, and I know we've had some other members of the council who have expressed the same.

I would like for us to be able to have renewable resources in this way.

And so I see the benefit of the CLT for that because it's gonna be hard to go from a $50,000 subsidy to one day having a conversation about a hundred thousand dollar subsidy, right?

I mean, that's fewer and fewer people that can be helped.

Yes.

And um, you know, the federal government has national forest and they do a 99-year lease on properties in national things like that that um that we've seen this model proven.

Yeah, commercial spaces, yeah.

All of the big I mean McDonald's is a great example.

They all use ground leases because the McDonald's corporation actually owns the land.

The franchise owner is the one that has the ground lease with the corporation.

Oh, isn't that clear?

The same thing with Walmart.

Walmart as one of the largest, they don't own all they don't own their stores.

That land they lease from property owners.

Okay.

Because if they need to shut down a store, Walmart feels like it's easier for them not to own the land and for them to just take a loss on the actual building.

Interesting.

So I mean the the ground lease itself has been a very durable legal mechanism in the commercial realm.

Okay.

That honestly, you're talking about a lot more money at stake than you would be for a residential home.

The the founders of the model 54 years ago just really thought and said, wait a minute, if they can do this with commercial, we can easily do this with residential.

So it looks like in the we are here that you we've got these meetings, faith community tonight, um, general public tomorrow, and and Lisa, you said you all are, I mean, we're totally in the learning phase.

Oh, we haven't that that yellow, or I'm sorry, that orange line.

I mean, we're in the far left of the screen right now.

So right now, as we look at the map of all the different land trusts, sounds to me like you all are looking for the just right fit for Chattanooga.

And so in these conversations, will will we will you be looking at what what kind of wealth generation we want to make sure we ensure in Chattanooga, what kind of community wealth generation how we hold, you know, how our resources can go the furthest.

Yes.

Okay.

Um addressing the reconciliation that needs to happen.

Absolutely.

Um safeguarding so that we don't, you know, uh repeat some of the deeds of the past, absolutely.

Okay.

So our marching orders are stay tuned and stay engaged.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, like I said, this is the first time we've met um Jason in person.

He we outside the screen, and so we've got uh a work session actually right after this meeting, and then again tomorrow to determine kind of what the next steps are and what phase two looks like, and then at that point we'll be and I how how we do that yet, we haven't determined, but uh reaching out to ask more folks to be part of the process and provide more input so that whatever you know.

I think we're creating something, right?

That's the creation and design phase, um, and then testing along the way to make sure that folks are able to provide feedback.

Okay.

Well, when the time comes, um Chattanooga, the city has worked diligently to create a great network of neighborhood um neighborhood leaders with neighborhood associations.

So that could be a terrific way to get the word out across the entire city because even a lot of our HOAs are also neighborhood associations.

So I point toward District 4 because they have a lot of HOAs compared with those of us in the Wild Wild Blast that just are wild and crazy.

Um okay, well, any other questions, anybody?

No, okay.

Well, thank you so very much for being here.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, okay, council, since we have a quorum now, um, I would like to um ask for a motion to approve the minutes from our previous strategic planning meetings.

So move second.

Okay, we have a motion to approve the minutes with a proper second.

Um minutes will stand, barring any objection.

Good, okay.

Um other business, I wanted to let you all know that on the 16th, we're going to have a presentation from Carta just to keep us updated on their progress.

Um, you know, we we just know that they are a uh a partner with us on a on a lot of things, and so we want to stay up to date with what they're doing.

And also um Kevin has uh is working on getting a uh presentation from United Way about 311, just as the economy and um obviously the federal shutdown uh rapidly dialed up needs, so we want to hear from them about how things are going and and how we continue to partner with them.

Um there are some board appointments.

Does anybody have any um comments or announcements before we go?

I might we might be able to have five minutes to ourselves here.

Anything else?

No.

No?

Okay, well then we are adjourned.

Thanks, everyone.

And Rakita did a great job today.

Oh, awesome.

Oh wait, are you done?