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The Silk Road Community Land Trust was awarded a bond amount of $1.5 million on Thursday by San Antonio City Council. The trust will work with homebuyers to acquire and rehabilitate 10 homes for purchase in Northwest San Antonio.
A community land trust (CLT) is a nonprofit model designed to create long-term affordable homeownership.
In a CLT, the trust retains ownership of the land and leases it to the homeowner under a ground lease, while the homeowner buys and owns the house itself.
The approval is a step required under Texas law for homes in a community land trust to be appraised using a restricted value tied to resale limits rather than full market value.
Nadia Mavrakis is co-executive director of Culturingua, who will oversee the land trust. She said the approval is a big step for affordable housing in the city.
“It helps stabilize community prices by removing land from the speculative market and will ensure long-term affordability for residents for San Antonio residents for home ownership,” she told TPR.
She says now the job is to educate the public.
“Our next step is to begin outreach to the broader community about the opportunities that the Silk Road Community Land Trust offers for potential homebuyers and to do workshops to educate the public about what it means to own a community land trust home, what that partnership would look like and also what are the steps it would take to qualify”
The Silk Road Community Land Trust was approved in February and includes the majorities of Districts 7 and 8 and portions of Districts 1 and 6.
During the Thursday meeting The San Antonio City Council unanimously approved a total of $20.7 million in funding for eight affordable housing developments that will preserve and produce 576 homes for San Antonio families.
Awarded developments were selected through a competitive procurement process for affordable housing. The awards demonstrate progress toward the 10-year housing goals outlined in San Antonio’s Strategic Housing Implementation Plan.
