After we moved to the Berkshires, I continued to work in the construction field, at first remodeling the garage and guest house Susan and I bought, both located on the ten acres bought by the CLT from the DeRis family.
In 1982 the Schumacher Society sponsored its first seven-day seminar entitled "Community Economic Transformation." Community land trusts and local currencies were, of course, key subjects for the seminar. Worker ownership and stakeholder ownership were also major subjects. George Benello, one of our resource people and a co-worker, had just returned from a trip abroad. While in Spain, he visited the town of Mondragon and studied their unique cooperative ownership plan. Since that time Mondragon has become world famous.
Shann Turnbull, our colleague from Australia, presented plans for cooperative ownership in Australia, and Jeff Gates lectured on the model of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan in the United States. The papers from our seminars became a book called Building Sustainable Communities, edited by Ward Morehouse. We continued the seminars for several years until after George died in 1988.
Inspired by what George had learned in Spain, a few local members of the Society, also in the construction field, and I decided to start a building cooperative based on the successful Mondragon model. Within a few years our coop grew from three members to eleven, but then the stock-market crash of 1987 brought building almost to a halt. We had to end the coop, but while it lasted it was financially successful. Of all the projects it undertook, the building of a seventeen-family housing project on twenty-one acres of land held by the Community Land Trust was the most ambitious.
With this project—called Forest Row, located in the town of Great Barrington—we were able to combine the advantages of good land-use planning and creative house design (both single and multiple family homes, all but two of which I designed), at the same time selling the units at below market rates. The houses were clustered on several acres, with most of the land used for recreation and left as open space. In spite of some problems, mostly related to the depressed real estate market after 1987, almost all of the original residents are still living there.
Even though most of the houses on the twenty-one acres were built and sold at below-market rates, we were dissatisfied that we were unable to bring the cost down enough for average local families to afford. We decided, therefore, to create a separately organized charitable entity called the Fund for Affordable Housing. As a tax-exempt organization the Fund could accept donations to subsidize construction costs. The Fund has built two homes at Forest Row for sale to low-income families. It also administers a second-mortgage loan fund financed with investments from Berkshire residents and vacation homeowners. The loan pool provides low-cost second mortgages to unit owners at Forest Row, thus lowering monthly mortgage payments. Eighty percent of the original loans have been repaid, and some borrowers are now lenders to the Fund.
As a volunteer organization modeled after Habitat for Humanity, the Fund organizes community assistance for the construction of the homes it builds. Community members who are well-versed in the particulars of housing development are chosen for the board: architects, builders, and bankers who volunteer their professional skills. Once the housing is built, the Fund does not have the staff to manage the resale restrictions (which keep the units affordable for future generations) or to oversee land-use provisions, so affordability and land-use standards are maintained by working cooperatively with the CLT.
This association between the Fund for Affordable Housing and the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires represents an ideal form of cooperation between a charitable organization and a nonprofit CLT. The partnership provides affordable access to land and affordable home ownership for year-round residents who otherwise would not be able to live in this high-priced vacation-home region.
Another example of cooperation between land-holding organizations is provided by the Great Barrington Land Conservancy (which has tax-exempt status as a conservation group) and the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires. The office building known as Riverbank House on Great Barrington's Main Street has been the home of many small nonprofit groups. When the CLT bought Riverbank House (which is now owned by The Orion Society), the steep riverbank behind the building was littered with debris from years of neglect and from a fire in the building next door. CLT member Rachel Fletcher led a team of mostly volunteers to clean up the riverbank, resulting in a cleaner lot and greater community attention to the Housatonic River and its environs.
Rachel next conceived the idea of a Housatonic Riverwalk to parallel a quarter-mile stretch of Main Street. The town has shared her dream. Over one thousand volunteers have helped in cleanups and trail-building along the river. Rachel estimates that the cleanup work of volunteers, combined with the actual costs for building materials, has created improvements valued at $100,000 on the properties. These improvements, though desirable, could not have been justified economically by the property's commercial uses; however, the partnership between the charitably organized Great Barrington Land Conservancy and the nonprofit Community Land Trust helped facilitate Rachel's popular project.
The Great Barrington Land Conservancy now holds a ninety-nine-year lease along the trail. Tax-deductible donations for materials to build stairs down the steepest part of the bank went to the Conservancy, as lessee of the site. The ninety-nine-year lease is a lien on the properties and protects the community's investment of money and time for the benefit of future generations. Other property owners will be asked to sign similar leases in exchange for a cleanup of their banks.
Recently the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires joined with the Great Barrington Land Conservancy to establish a fund to purchase tracts of farmland and then lease the land back to farmers at a reasonable cost, thus reducing the overall indebtedness on the farms. The farmers will retain ownership of the buildings and equipment, which they may sell to future leaseholders at replacement value. The lease agreement is a tool to protect present and future affordability of the land for farmers and ensure that conservation measures are incorporated into agricultural practices. The fund provides a way for consumers to support an agricultural base in their community.