1. Big-picture: What’s going on?

• Footprint Foundation (Lisa Pinkney) is leading a process, funded by a $4M / 5-year commitment to their Buzz network (about 80 nonprofit leaders; 25 deeply involved) to explore Community Land Trusts (CLTs) as a long-term housing affordability & economic stability strategy in Chattanooga.
• They hired Grounded Solutions Network (Jason Webb) as the national consultant to:
  • Teach CLT 101 and what’s worked in 100+ communities across the U.S.
  • Help design a Chattanooga-specific CLT model (not a copy of Atlanta/Memphis).
• Phase 1 (Education & Feasibility) is just wrapping up.
  They’re now moving into Phase 2 (Program Design): a 6–12 month process to design the CLT structure with a larger community group and more public input (faith leaders, general public, etc.).
• There was no “ask” of Council yet – this was intentionally informational and relationship-building.

2. What is a Community Land Trust (CLT)? (As explained in the meeting)

Core definition Jason used:

A CLT is a nonprofit organization that:

• Owns and stewards the land permanently, and
• Allows families / organizations to own or lease the buildings on that land
• Under a 99-year renewable ground lease that:
  • Spells out homeowner & CLT responsibilities,
  • Sets resale restrictions to keep homes permanently affordable,
  • Keeps the public subsidy recycling through multiple families, not just one.

Key mechanics

• Dual ownership:
  • Homeowner owns the house.
  • CLT owns the land and leases it for 99 years.
  • Every time there’s a new buyer (or heirs), the 99-year clock resets, so it’s effectively permanent.
• Permanent affordability formula:
  • The first buyer gets the home below market (because of subsidy).
  • When they sell, they agree to a limited, fixed appreciation rate (e.g. 2% per year), not full market appreciation.
  • Result:
    • The buyer still builds real wealth (just capped).
    • A big chunk of equity stays “in the house” and makes it affordable for the next low-income buyer.
• This directly contrasts with traditional Down Payment Assistance:
  • DPA: $X subsidy helps one family then disappears when they sell at full market later.
  • CLT: the same subsidy helps family after family through resale restrictions.

Jason’s example:

• Traditional DPA: $45k subsidy → First family walks with full subsidy + appreciation; second family needs new subsidy (even more).
• CLT: $45k is baked into the reduced price. After 10 years, seller keeps some equity (e.g. $30k) and $55k stays with the home to help the next buyer. The second family can buy at exactly what they can afford, without needing a fresh big subsidy.

Wealth-building example

Jason shared a real CLT case:

• Buyer with very low income (~$13k/year) was rent-burdened.
• CLT sold them a home with PITI ~ $450, cheaper than even a reasonable rent.
• After 20+ years:
  • They walked away with ~$40k in cash at sale, plus
  • ~$51k in rent savings vs what they would have paid on the rental market.
  • Combined financial benefit ~ $91k, on an initial cash down of only ~$1,100.
• Meanwhile, the second family gets the same house at an affordable price and saves roughly $1,000/month vs the local rental market.

3. Chattanooga-specific context Jason showed

• Historically, Chattanooga did not have a big affordability gap between median home prices and what households at Area Median Income (AMI) could afford.
• Over the last ~10 years, that’s changed:
  • There is now a growing affordability gap, even for families at 100% of AMI, with a gap of $80k+ between what the market is asking and what they can reasonably afford.
• Implication:
  To close that gap with traditional models, you either:
  • Reduce the construction/market cost dramatically, or
  • Bring massive and repeated subsidy dollars to every new buyer.
    CLTs are pitched as a way to protect those subsidy dollars and stretch them over generations.

4. How CLTs interact with the market & neighbors

Property values & appraisals

• Concern (Councilman Harvey):
  If my block has lots of CLT homes, does that drag down my home’s appraisal/equity?
• Jason’s answer:
  • Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac guidelines say appraisers cannot use CLT homes as comps for traditional market-rate homes, because CLT prices are artificially restricted by contract.
  • There are training courses and guidelines for appraisers, and part of Chattanooga implementation will involve educating assessors & appraisers.
  • In some states, CLT homes are taxed based on their restricted value, not full market value; Chattanooga would need to explore what’s allowed under Tennessee law.

Taxes & reappraisals

• Concern (Councilwoman Berz):
  When reappraisals cause values to spike, how are CLT homes treated?
• Jason:
  • It’s state-specific.
  • In some states, legislation says tax assessments must reflect the resale-restricted value (since the owner can never realize full market price).
  • Where statute doesn’t speak to CLTs, assessors sometimes accept the legally binding ground lease as justification for using a lower valuation.

5. Land, development & partnerships

Where does the land come from?

• Many CLTs partner with municipalities to:
  • Receive publicly-owned land (donated or via RFP), especially when cities explicitly want lasting affordability.
  • Use that land for CLT projects instead of one-and-done affordable homes.
• CLT often doesn’t act as the primary developer:
  • It partners with experienced private or nonprofit developers to actually build units.
  • In some places, they’re using:
    • Modular construction to reduce costs.
    • Developers who voluntarily donate part of their fee or accept lower returns because they want social impact (and tax benefits).

CE & Footprint’s roles

• Footprint Foundation is funding the exploration and working with:
  • Grounded Solutions as technical experts.
  • CE (sounds like a local partner with development capacity and staff; exact org wasn’t spelled out in the transcript).
• Early thinking:
  • The CLT would be its own independent nonprofit with a board.
  • CE’s existing staff capacity may be leveraged so they don’t have to build a whole new staff from scratch.

Governance structure

• Jason described the typical “tripartite” board:
  1. Leaseholder reps – people who live in CLT homes.
  2. Community reps – residents from the broader community.
  3. Public/partner reps – stakeholders like local government, funders, etc.
• Many CLTs have a membership model:
  • Community members “join” and elect the board, adding democratic accountability.

6. Risk, trust, and racial equity concerns raised by Council

Past harm in Black communities

• Council members explicitly named:
  • Previous affordable housing programs in Chattanooga where homes were effectively “ripped from under” Black and brown homeowners.
  • Foreclosure crisis impact: nationally, CLT homes had much lower default rates (~0.5%) vs. 5% general mortgage default during the crisis, partly because CLTs blocked predatory/teaser-rate mortgages via the ground lease.
• Big concern:
  How do we rebuild trust and ensure this doesn’t become another vehicle for dispossession?

What if the CLT fails?

• Question: What protections are there for residents if the CLT itself ever collapses or tries to sell off assets?
• Jason’s answer was more general:
  • This is a legal design issue – ensuring that if something happens to the CLT, homes and land are protected and not dumped onto the speculative market.
  • This will need to be designed intentionally and may involve:
    • Backup stewards,
    • Legal protections in the ground lease,
    • Perhaps coordination with the city or other nonprofits.

(This is clearly something Council wants baked into the Chattanooga model.)

7. Beyond homeownership: retail, rentals, churches & community uses

Jason gave several examples of non-residential CLT uses:

• Mixed-use building:
  • Retail on ground floor, apartments above, all on CLT land.
  • CLT used the ground lease to ban specific uses (liquor stores, check cashers, etc.) and promote community-serving retail.
• Former bank building → artist & nonprofit center:
  • Bank donated a 10,000 sq ft building to the CLT.
  • CLT leveraged philanthropy & city economic development dollars.
  • Result: affordable space for artists and nonprofits, preserved long-term.

Faith community examples

• Working with churches in:
  • Lansing, Michigan
  • Lynchburg, Virginia
• Pattern:
  • Church transfers land/buildings into CLT.
  • CLT develops housing; 20% of units reserved for congregation members (e.g., staff or parishioners).
  • Provides housing for practitioners and uses underutilized or surplus church land productively while keeping it permanently affordable.
• CLT and Enterprise Community Partners have launched a faith-based partnership to help churches do this without losing assets to the market in 20 years.

Local dreaming / application

Council members started connecting dots to Chattanooga:

• Underutilized churches with excess land.
• Neighborhoods needing grocery stores or local-serving retail.
• Libraries & community centers that might be repositioned, expanded, or co-located with housing / services.
• Stadium-area retail and how a CLT structure could protect space for local businesses, not just rely on a developer’s voluntary commitments.

8. Where are they in the process & what’s next?

From Lisa & Jason:

• Phase 1 – Education & feasibility
  ✅ Almost complete. Core small group (Buzz members + partners) has been meeting every two weeks for about six months.
• Phase 2 – Program design (6–12 months)
  • Larger community engagement:
    • Faith leaders meeting (same evening as this transcript).
    • General public session at the library (next day).
    • Meetings with mayor, county mayor, council members, etc.
  • Tasks:
    • Decide who the CLT serves first (income targets, neighborhoods, priority populations).
    • Design board structure, membership, and legal protections.
    • Clarify role of CE, Footprint, city, and other partners.
    • Address racial equity & reconciliation around past harms.
• City’s role right now:
  • Purely learning & dialogue.
  • No formal policy or funding ask yet, but:
    • Council members signaled they want to know what a future partnership/investment might look like.
    • They want guardrails around past mistakes, especially in Black communities.

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