One Kentucky town’s secret to affordable housing

When Nachand Trabue began seeing investors’ “we buy homes” signs popping up on the streets of Smoketown, Kentucky, she pulled them out of the ground. Determined to preserve the spirit of her neighborhood and keep housing affordable for long-time residents, herself and other residents with deep roots in Smoketown dove into organizing a Community Land Trust. Now, the trust has built seven affordable homes — and more are on their way.

Smoketown's CLT funds the construction of homes, but gets the land for free from the city. CLT’s retain ownership of the land they sell or rent houses on, keeping the homes cheap and under community control, and also requires owners to sell at an affordable price. Before starting new developments, Smoketown’s CLT speaks to nearby residents to hear their concerns and wishes for the land.

Reasons to be Cheerful reports:

The land bank has earmarked around 70 plots in the neighborhood for the trust, says [Theresa Boyd, executive director of Smoketown Community Land Trust]: “We were fortunate that those that came before me had enough gall to go to the city and be like, “Y’all holding all this land and you are absolutely not going to give it to investors. You are going to earmark it for the Community Land Trust.’ And we made them put it in writing.”