This Monday, Dec. 20th, there will be a joint School Board & Borough Council Meeting at 7:30pm at the Pottstown Middle School in the 2nd floor LGI room.
The agenda will include an update to the community on the PAID partnership, a presentation about a Community Land Trust for Pottstown, and tax assessments. I will be part of the group that is doing the Community Land Trust presentation.
A community land trust (CLT) is a nonprofit model that offers flexibility for engaging in housing, neighborhood stabilization and economic development activities that are appropriate for a particular area. A few notable features of CLTs are:
- setting & implementing goals with community input
- having CLT homeowners & other community reps. on its board
- undertaking an active acquisition program
- selling buildings at affordable prices while the CLT retains ownership of the land beneath the buildings
- being stewards of the land and neighborhoods
- increasing homeownership
- preventing foreclosures
While most CLTs have as their main goal the creation of permanently affordable, owner-occupied housing in places where housing prices are high or escalating, a CLT for Pottstown would undertake a broader range of activities such as community gardens and economic development initiatives to help bring back market-rate activity.
With input from the community, a CLT for Pottstown would undertake activities in a targeted way to slow the negative fiscal spiral and coax the market back. Many aspects of this approach have been recommended in study after study.
I’m certainly looking forward to carrying on this conversation & to hear questions and observations from the larger community about how this could work. Hope you can make it Monday night!
Added after original post:
Here’s a link to the Pottstown CLT website.
It’s at www.PottstownCLT.wordpress.com.
It’s a work-in-progress. A PowerPoint presentation will be posted there after the Monday meeting.
Positively Pottstown blog 