Corvallis OR: Fresh Tactic on Housing

Local land trust could keep some homes affordable

By REBECCA BARRETT
Gazette-Times reporter

Corvallis Neighborhood Housing Services is developing a new way to help people find affordable housing.

The non-profit community development corporation plans to create what is known as a community land trust, where people can purchase homes on land that is retained by the trust.

Corvallis Neighborhood Housing’s land trust is modeled after similar programs in other communities, and details are still being worked out. But officials hope to start construction on new homes at Seavy Meadows in northeast Corvallis in 2007.

Many of Neighborhood Housing’s programs are geared toward helping people who are in the lower-income range, such as live in rental properties it owns at Lancaster Bridge, Pickford/Leonard, Larson Commons and Camas Commons.

Neighborhood Housing also provides financial assistance and education for potential home buyers.

The land trust would help people in the higher range of low-income, said Neighborhood Housing Director Jim Moorefield. In Corvallis, incomes have not grown as fast as housing prices, he said.

“This could make more of a difference in people’s ability to buy their own home,” Moorefield said.

Here’s how the land trust would work: The city of Corvallis owns 5 acres of land near in a residential area north of Circle Boulevard near Hewlett-Packard Co. City officials have set that land aside to work with Neighborhood Housing to develop affordable housing.

Next year, Neighborhood Housing will build a mix of rental units and homes for sale. Some of those homes will be sold with a long-term lease of the land to the homeowner.

The homes are more affordable than others on the market because Neighborhood Housing takes the cost of land out of the purchase price. Resale restrictions apply, but the homeowner would be allowed to keep some of the equity they’ve built, while Neighborhood Housing retains the rest, so a portion of the subsidy provided is returned and can be used to help other low-income families.

Corvallis has a shortage of affordable homes on the market, Moorefield noted.

According to recent data from the Willamette Valley Multiple Listing Services, Lebanon has nearly five times as many homes for sale as in Corvallis priced at under $200,000. For example, listings from this spring showed 17 homes for sale under $200,000 in Corvallis, which has four times the population of Lebanon, where 83 homes under $200,000 were listed.

According to Neighborhood Housing, there are more than 9,100 low-income households in Corvallis, ones where the household income for a family of four is less than 80 percent of the median income — $54,500.

Neighborhood Housing defines affordable housing as spending one-third of total income on a mortgage, insurance and property taxes, or rent and utilities. Of Corvallis’ low-income households, two-thirds of people are spending more than a third of their income on housing.

“It’s one reason why Oregon had one of the highest hunger and food insecurity ratings in the nation,” Moorefield said.

Home ownership is one of the best ways for a person to build wealth over time, Moorefield said. Owning a home is a good investment for families, he said.

Barbara Ross, a member of the board of directors of Corvallis Neighborhood Housing Services, said the land trust could leverage Corvallis’ pitch with recruiting businesses to town. Leaders can point to the land trust as an incentive to locate here, because there are programs to assist employees with affordable housing, she said.

“I see it as a tool of economic development,” Ross said.

At a glance

WHAT: Corvallis Neighborhood Housing Services, nonprofit corporation that provides housing development services, home ownership education and financial assistance programs, financial literacy programs, microenterprise program for people starting or strengthening a small business.

INFORMATION: 752-7220

ON THE NET: www.corvallisnhs.org