Co-Creating Urban Affordability: The Plank Road Community Land Bank and Trust

Manny Patole, LLM, MUP

Co-City Fellow and Project Manager, Co-City Baton Rouge

 

Urban affordability is an issue cities all over the world grapple with. Emerging from first the foreclosure crisis in 2008 and now COVID-19, many cities are facing an ongoing and more severe problem: the lack of quality affordable housing. Compounded by unemployment, structural inequity and inequality, and evictions, many political and community leaders are looking toward alternative approaches to housing in urban areas. In response, the concepts around varios community ownership models have emerged as a transformative strategy to advance an equitable recovery. The Plank Road Community Land Bank and Trust is a novel institution developed by Professors Sheila Foster & Clayton Gillette, along with Project Manager Manny Patole that focuses on co-creation and co-governance of local community assets to facilitate community-driven economic development. The growing work around alternative equity models for affordable housing provide cities a new opportunity.

 

Context

 

LabGov Georgetown (LabGov) and the Marron Institute of Urban Management at NYU (Marron) have partnered with Build Baton Rouge (BBR), the redevelopment authority of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to pilot a multistakeholder approach to economic revitalization in the Plank Road corridor of Baton Rouge in 2018. The project proposes a novel approach to address economically distressed neighborhoods and cities using the “Co-City Protocol” (the “Protocol”).  The Protocol has been tested most extensively  in cities outside of the U.S. After conducting a Rockefeller-sponsored workshop in Bellagio that focused on American cities, LabGov partnered with Marron and BBR to introduce the Protocol in the U.S.  The Baton Rouge project, titled Co-City Baton Rouge (CCBR), will implement, test, and evaluate neighborhood scale governance innovation. LabGov and Marron anticipate that we will subsequently adapt the Protocol as appropriate to reflect our experience with Baton Rouge and undertake similar projects in other economically distressed U.S. cities.

 

Plank Road is one of the most blighted corridors in Baton Rouge yet remains a significant anchor for the neighborhoods of North Baton Rouge.  The heart of Plank Road runs through the 70805 zip code where many of Baton Rouge’s social and economic challenges are concentrated. The neighborhoods around Plank Road are predominately black and poor, a reflection of Baton Rouge’s deeply entrenched racial and spatial stratification. 70805 is 93% black and reflects the consequences of historical patterns of racial segregation and racialized poverty. The area underperforms state averages in many categories. The area has the City-Parish’s highest concentration of zero-car households and, accordingly, its second highest transit ridership. The purpose behind this small area master plan is to restore a vibrant and active area that has been structurally disinvested.

 

CCBR started off as a collaborative partner with BBR on the Imagine Plank Road master planning project starting in Spring 2019. As part of the planning team, we helped lead in-depth community and stakeholder consultation which provided the guiding values for the development of Plank Road and shaped the benchmarks for the plan as well as specific catalytic development projects. The planning team informed and engaged residents, businesses and other key stakeholders during the process and learned about their lived experience and aspirations for the community through surveys, in-person experiential events, including a food truck roundup and street festival, a community roundtable, and collaboration with trained community ambassadors. The work was presented in November 2019 at a community town hall held at Southern University with hundreds in attendance and many more watching from home. Although 2020 marked the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic it also provided good news for the project: In October 2020 Build Baton Rouge was selected to receive a $5 million JPMorgan Chase 2020 AdvancingCities grant to implement the Plank Road masterplan. Build Baton Rouge partnered with TruFund Financial, Metromorphosis, and the Co-City Baton Rouge Project to implement the Plank Road masterplan through programs that will eliminate blight, grow small businesses, and preserve housing affordability in North Baton Rouge.

 

Background

The application of the Co-City protocol in Baton Rouge required some work in understanding a few main concepts: co-creation, value capture, and shared equity.

 

Co-creation and co-governance are collaborative approaches to urban development and governance that emphasize inclusive and participatory decision-making processes involving various stakeholders, including residents, local businesses, community organizations, and governmental bodies. Co-creation entails the joint development and design of urban assets and services, integrating diverse perspectives and ideas to address the specific needs and aspirations of communities. On the other hand, co-governance emphasizes the shared management and stewardship of these assets, promoting transparent and equitable decision-making among stakeholders. These concepts complement each other by fostering a culture of active engagement, mutual responsibility, and collective action within communities, leading to more effective and sustainable urban development outcomes that reflect the shared values and aspirations of the local population. Co-creation encourages diverse inputs in the planning and design stages, while co-governance ensures that the management and implementation of projects reflect the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders, ultimately fostering a sense of ownership and shared responsibility in the development of urban environments.

 

Value capture refers to a range of public financing strategies and mechanisms that allow governments and communities to capture a portion of the increased land and property values resulting from public investments, infrastructure improvements, or other development activities. This concept involves harnessing the economic gains generated by public interventions and using them to finance the costs of infrastructure, public services, or community projects. Value capture mechanisms can include taxes, impact fees, development charges, land value taxation, special assessments, and the creation of development districts. By capturing a portion of the increased land value, governments can reinvest these funds back into the community, thus ensuring that public investments contribute to sustainable and equitable urban development, infrastructure provision, and the enhancement of public services.

 

The shared equity model is a housing approach that aims to increase access to affordable homeownership by allowing multiple stakeholders, such as individuals, nonprofit organizations, and government entities, to collectively invest in and share the equity of a property. This model typically involves a partnership between a homebuyer and a housing provider, where the home buyer purchases a portion of the equity in a home while the housing provider retains ownership of the remaining portion. As the property appreciates in value, the homebuyer and the housing provider share the equity gains proportionally based on their initial investment percentages. Shared equity models often incorporate mechanisms to ensure long-term affordability, such as resale restrictions or buyback options, thereby preserving the affordability of the property for future buyers and promoting sustainable homeownership opportunities for individuals with lower incomes.

 

The efficacy of these terms is not looking at them in silos rather how to use Co-creation, co-governance, value capture, and shared equity as interconnected concepts that, when implemented collectively, can enhance local economic development:

 

1. Co-creation encourages active participation and collaboration among stakeholders in the design and development of urban projects. When applied to economic development initiatives, it ensures that the local community’s needs and aspirations are considered, leading to more relevant and sustainable projects. Co-creation can lead to the creation of businesses, services, and infrastructure that are tailored to the specific demands of the community, thereby fostering economic growth.
2. Co-governance promotes transparency, accountability, and shared decision-making among stakeholders, including local government, businesses, and community members. This inclusive governance model ensures that economic development strategies are developed and executed with broad community input, reducing the risk of favoring specific interest groups or neglecting the needs of marginalized populations.
3. Value capture mechanisms can provide a sustainable funding source for economic development initiatives. By capturing a portion of the increased land and property values resulting from these projects, local governments can reinvest these funds into further economic development activities, infrastructure improvements, or public services, thereby amplifying the impact of their investments.
4. Shared equity in housing and local businesses can increase economic inclusivity and create more stable and resilient local economies. By providing access to affordable homeownership and supporting small businesses through shared equity models, individuals with lower incomes have a greater opportunity to build wealth and contribute to the local economy. These models help address economic disparities and ensure a more equitable distribution of economic benefits within the community.

 

The co-creation and co-governance facilitate community-driven economic development, while value capture ensures sustainable funding, and shared equity models promote economic inclusivity and stability. When these approaches are integrated into a comprehensive strategy, they can lead to more robust and equitable local economic development.

 

Project

 

Building on the work of Center for Community Progress and Grounded Solutions and many organizations globally, CCBR wanted to provide a unique approach to the message echoed throughout the master planning process: we need affordable space and place. Many wanted affordable housing but it didn’t stop there… they wanted a more comprehensive solution that would provide additional assets that make a house part of a community. Things like parks, sidewalks, small businesses, better infrastructure, and overall agency on what that looks like. CCBR set forth on creating something new and something different that would encapsulate these ideas. That became the Plank Road Community Land Bank and Trust. To understand the PR CLBT first you should understand what is a land bank, a land trust, and how this is a first of its kind.

A land bank and a community land trust are both mechanisms used in real estate and urban development to address community needs, but they serve different purposes and operate under different structures.

 

Land Bank:

• A land bank is a governmental or nonprofit entity that acquires, manages, and repurposes vacant, abandoned, or tax-delinquent properties for future development or community revitalization. Land banks typically focus on acquiring and holding properties for strategic purposes, such as eliminating blight, promoting affordable housing, or supporting economic development initiatives.
• Land banks often work closely with local governments and community stakeholders to identify and prioritize properties for acquisition, redevelopment, or reuse. They may also collaborate with developers, nonprofits, and community organizations to implement revitalization projects that align with the community’s long-term goals and vision for the area.

 

 

Community Land Trust (CLT):

• A community land trust is a nonprofit organization that acquires and holds land in a trust for the benefit of the community. The primary goal of a community land trust is to ensure long-term affordable housing and community development by separating the ownership of land from the ownership of the structures built on the land.
• In a community land trust, residents or tenants typically own the structures (such as houses or buildings) on the land, while the trust retains ownership of the land itself. This model allows for the creation and preservation of permanently affordable housing, as the trust can control the resale and leasing of the land to maintain affordability for future residents.

 

Land banks and CLTs are often perceived as antithetical tools that may not work or compliment each other. Ironically, these two entities are sometimes conflated as one and the same. Neither perception, however, reflects reality. After the 2008 foreclosure crisis, the Center for Community Progress (US convening authority on land banks) and Grounded Solutions Network (US convening authority on CLTs) saw an opportunity to educate the public on the differences between the two as well as how these entities can coordinate to optimize equitable development outcomes. (For additional information, see the National Land Bank and CLT Map)

 

 

Taking it a step further beyond the two entities having institutional agreements, a community land bank and trust is a hybrid approach that combines elements of both a land bank and a community land trust. This model integrates the strategies of acquiring, holding, and managing land, as well as promoting long-term affordability and community development. It aims to address a range of community needs, including affordable housing, sustainable development, and the revitalization of distressed or underutilized properties within a locality.

Generally speaking, this approach incorporates the community land trust approach by separating the ownership of land from the ownership of structures built on the land, ensuring long-term affordability and community control. Through the community land trust component, the organization can facilitate the development and management of affordable housing units while maintaining the land’s community ownership and preserving its affordability for future generations.

In the case of the Plank Road CLBT it operates as a nonprofit organization that collaborates with local governments, community stakeholders, and residents to acquire and manage land for various community purposes. It may acquire vacant, abandoned, or tax-delinquent properties with the aim of repurposing them for affordable housing, community gardens, parks, or other public amenities.

 

The development of the institutional design, articles of incorporation, bylaws, operating documents, model land leases and budgeting is multi pronged approach of Legal scholarship, Interviews, Desk Research to understand industry best practices and challenges in key areas:

• Institutional Design, Processes and Procedures
• Board of Director composition
• Role and Composition of Community Advisory Boards
• Organizational purposes
• Overall Innovations

 

The process yielded great information that aided the development of the PR CLBT:

• Examples researched have limited formalized relationships between CLT’s and LB’s
• Clear roles, responsibilities, and institutional governance very important
• PR CLBT Board composition should be well thought out and discussed before codified
• Community Advisory Board participation a valuable connection with the community at large
• Property transfer process between institutional entities needs to be clear
• PR CLBT would be the first of its kind institution in the USA and perhaps globally.
• PR CLBT would be multi-use, not just focused on housing but many other community needs
• Part of the model is community capacity-building, as has been done elsewhere

 

The PR CLBT (working) mission is to  Contribute to the revitalization of the Plank Road community by putting vacant properties, vacant land, and tax-delinquent properties …back into productive use in a manner that promotes neighborhood stabilization and anti-displacement of existing residents. As of October 2023 the PR CLBT is a fully incorporated 501(c)(3) with an interim board, established articles of incorporation and bylaws. As it moves forward, the PR CLBT is researching innovative financing options and processes that will attract real estate developers to this work and researching land leases that incorporate the values and innovative design of the PR CLBT.

The PR CLBT should be seen as a new tool in the toolbox of cities experiencing similar issues to Baton Rouge: to serve as a comprehensive mechanism for promoting community-driven development, fostering affordable housing initiatives, and addressing various social and economic challenges within a specific locality. By combining the strengths of both land banks and community land trusts, this model aims to create sustainable and inclusive communities while ensuring the responsible management and use of land resources for the benefit of the residents.

 

We owe a great deal of gratitude to our research assistants from LSU School of Law (Demetrius Causer), NYU Wagner School of Public Service (Faisah Barlas, Maya Portillo, & Naquita Goldston), NYU School of Law (Krystle Okafor), the numerous land banks and CLTs who shared their expertise, the subject matter experts from Center for Community Progress and Grounded Solutions, the institutional support fromBuild Baton Rouge, The Huey and Angelina Wilson Foundation,  NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management,, and the shared lived experience of the local communities we worked with in Plank Road. Without their guidance, knowledge, and spirit, the project would not be where it is today.