Council approves community land trust to create affordable housing complex in Reno

The Community Foundation of Western Nevada will partner with the city of Reno and a housing builder to create affordable housing for minimum wage workers, homeless teens and seniors displaced from motels.

Jim Pfrommer, a board member for the foundation, and developers presented the concept to the Reno City Council on Wednesday. The foundation asked the council to sell a city-owned empty lot at 250 Sage St. for $1. The council unanimously voted to sell the land to the Community Foundation and allow development of the housing complex.

The Community Foundation is a nonprofit that helps people direct their money and assets toward charitable causes. For example, if a person wants to donate to "nutrition" generally, the foundation will help them find a local nonprofit that aligns with that mission.

Sometimes the foundation receives property or stocks as donations instead of money. They realized that with land donations, they could assist developers in building housing at a lower cost than usual since a large portion of housing costs come from land prices.

The foundation created a company called the Community Housing Land Trust LLC to manage the new project.

A community land trust allows the city to donate land to a nonprofit managing entity that is required to build affordable housing on it. In a community land trust, the tenants of the property pay toward owning it in conjunction with the nonprofit manager who maintains the property.

“This is a new type of affordable housing, one that we hope is a model for the nation,” said Chris Askin, president and CEO of Community Foundation of Western Nevada. “This is a very non-traditional project. However, because of this we will need to find significant funding, as well as contributed services and contributed materials form local contractors and suppliers.”

Developers Par Tolles and Allison Gorelick found the company Afognak Native Corp., which builds pre-fabricated dormitory-style housing for mining workers in Wyoming. Afognak would sell the dorms to the land trust for $1.9 million financed over 10 years at 1 percent interest.

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The complex would include 200 small dorm units that include a desk, bed, closet, air conditioning and private locking door. The dorms include indoor co-ed bathrooms separate from the rooms. Kitchens, a gym, meeting rooms and laundry are in separate buildings in the complex. Outdoor fences, picnic and fire pit areas would also be added.

Pfrommer and Askin talked about charging no more than $390 a month in rent to pay for the complex and maintenance. The foundation also wants to hire the Volunteers of America to manage the dorms and provide life coaching for residents.

The VOA currently operates three similar projects in Reno.

Residents must be a qualified full-time worker, receiving services from The Eddy House if they are teens, a senior living in a motel or waiting for affordable housing.

The foundation wants to start quickly to secure the dorms and build out the complex. They also want to prove this model could help people before expanding to two more locations in the future.

The city of Reno wouldn't contribute money or staff outside of the initial research and land donation. The staff and council want an option to revert the land back to the city if the foundation fails to build or maintain affordable housing in a timely manner.

Council member Oscar Delgado said he sees this project as a type of bridge housing between a shelter and full housing. He also said that he likes that it will be run like a private housing project so that it'll be more properly maintained than government housing.

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"This is very exciting," said Councilwoman Neoma Jardon. "I've worked a long time on a tiny home concept, and while this looks different, it offers more. It gets trucked in and can get operated before snow next winter. It's the second rung on the housing continuum. We have the shelter and then rare single-room occupancy apartments."

Jardon will continue pursuing the tiny house village on the same land, but said her project will take longer to get moving than this one.

Council Member Paul McKenzie was also supportive while being critical of the council's inability to follow through on a government solution.

"The community land trust is an idea I feel we could truly move forward on because we're taking these seven personalities out of the mixture," he said nodding at the council. "And you're going to get something accomplished a lot faster than we can."

Mike Higdon is the city life reporter at the RGJ and can be found on Instagram @MillennialMike, on Facebook at Mike Higdon, Reno Life and on Twitter @MikeHigdon.