A brick row house at 29 Oak Street was the ideal candidate to be the first property acquired by a group trying to keep housing affordable in Chinatown. Lydia Lowe, of the Chinatown Community Land Trust, says the trust was prepared to pay $900,000 — and because it was owned by an active member of the community, it seemed like a sure bet.

"This was a long-time community homeowner and activist that we knew for decades," Lowe said, standing across the street from the building. "But we were unable to purchase the home because an investor came in and offered $1.3 million for this little building."

Lowe laughed and shook her head. "This little three-story building!"

It was one of five failed attempts by the Chinatown Community Land Trust to purchase one of the neighborhood's historic brick row houses. Organizers say their goal is to keep Chinatown the bastion for working class Chinese immigrants it's been for more than 100 years.

The community land trust model takes different forms, but in essence, land is owned by a trust and the trust ensures that the housing stays affordable for people of modest means.

Lowe says that's sorely needed in today's Chinatown, where the white population has doubled since 2000 and where Asians now make up less than half the population.

"We're just in the midst of a huge wave of displacement," Lowe said. "We've added about 3,000 units of luxury housing since 2000. Before that, Chinatown only had about 3,000 units of housing."

The Chinatown Community Land Trust owns no properties so far. But it has its eyes on a 200-unit low-income development — Mass Pike Towers — as well as a city-owned lot that's now being used for parking.

"We would like to see this land owned by the ... community land trust," Lowe said of the parking lot. "So that it would be a way for the community to truly have control over the development that happens here."

But Chinatown — an epicenter of Boston's real estate boom — couldn't be in a more different situation than that faced by the original community land trust in Boston. The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative created a land trust 25 years ago, in an area teeming with abandoned lots owned by the city.

Tony Hernandez, left, and Harry Smith say their community land trust has put development decisions into the hands of the community. "Our motto ... is development without displacement," Smith said. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Ronald Stokes was among the first residents to purchase a home on land owned by the Dudley Neighbors Incorporated community land trust. Speaking to us in his home, Stokes described the development of the neighborhood.

"I go back over 45 years, when all of this was blocked off with Jersey barriers and there was nothing but bushes and weeds," Stokes recalled. "All of this was just dead land, and they found a body right over there where the park now is."

A quarter of a century later, Stokes says the community land trust has been transformational for Dudley.