Lafayette commission considers $40,000 contract to study community land trust for affordable housing

The Lafayette Redevelopment Commission on July 24 discussed a proposed $40,000 Phase 2 contract with Grounded Solutions Network to study creating a community land trust aimed at preserving long-term affordable housing.

Dennis (staff member) told commissioners the proposed contract includes three tasks: a feasibility assessment and market analysis, a business plan and sustainability plan, and on-site and virtual meetings with stakeholders. “So, we'll actually create a operations of it, the cost, the budgeting, those kind of things,” Dennis said.

The work would follow an earlier Phase 1 engagement in which Grounded Solutions Network ran two days of meetings to educate local stakeholders about community land trusts and generated strong local interest, Dennis said. The feasibility task will evaluate opportunities and the process for developing a community land trust; the business-plan task will outline operations, costs and budgeting; and the outreach task will include on-site project meetings and virtual sessions with community partners, realtors, bankers and planning officials.

A commissioner asked, “So, they're looking for $40,000 — is that accurate?” Dennis confirmed the $40,000 figure and characterized it as the only cost for the next phase. He also said he had invited Tippecanoe County and the city of West Lafayette to gauge their interest and that they could become financial participants going forward.

Commissioners and staff discussed where a land trust might sit organizationally. Dennis said the land trust could be a separate organization, a city-led program or housed in another organization, and that phase-by-phase work would follow if the city decided to establish operations. “The land trust will hold land and…help support affordable housing,” he said, explaining the typical model of removing land from the cost of homeownership and negotiating equity-sharing at resale to maintain long-term affordability.

No formal motion or vote on the Phase 2 contract was recorded in the meeting transcript. Commissioners asked clarifying questions and expressed interest; Dennis said staff will provide updates as the Phase 2 work progresses.

Why this matters: Community land trusts are a tool to preserve long-term affordability by separating land ownership from homeownership. The Commission’s decision to pursue a feasibility and business-plan study will determine whether the city moves toward establishing a formal program, and whether neighboring governments share costs or governance.

The Commission moved on to other agenda items after discussion; no contract award was documented in the public record of this meeting.