Could land trusts fix problem-

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Advocates of affordable housing, a diminishing commodity in Albemarle County and elsewhere in Virginia, are promoting community land trusts to address the problem.

A community land trust is a nonprofit corporation that creates home-buying opportunities for people who would otherwise be locked out of the housing market. The trust lowers housing costs by limiting or eliminating the expense of land from home ownership.

While about 200 land trusts exist in the United States, the idea hasn't caught on in Virginia.

Bill Edgerton, a member of the Albemarle Planning Commission, and mortgage banker Frazier Bell are promoting the concept in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

"There's very little affordable housing available in either the city or the county currently," Edgerton said. "We're trying to keep a stock of affordable housing affordable and try to see if the community land trust model will work here."

The region has some of the most expensive housing in Virginia, even though wages haven't kept pace.

The median home sales price in the Charlottesville metropolitan area jumped from $150,000 in 2000 to $279,000 in 2006.

Edgerton and Bell traveled to Burlington, Vt., this year to look at that city's program.

"We feel this is one of the best and proven methods," Bell said. "It would elate me that we would finally have one in the state of Virginia."

Edgerton has hired a consulting group from that northern Vermont city to look at the prospect of a land trust in Charlottesville-Albemarle.

Stu Armstrong of the Piedmont Housing Alliance, an area affordable housing advocate, applauded the initiative but said it could face hurdles.

"To actually make it work there's another eight or 10 oars that need to be in the water," he said.

Overton McGehee, the executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville, said the trust would "be a huge benefit to affordable housing."

"In parts of the country where land costs are even higher than here, Habitat affiliates have found land trusts to be a good method," McGehee said.

As a private organization, a community land trust would not need the blessing of government.

Albemarle Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker said a trust could be funded in part by developers, who could offer land or money in exchange for approvals.