Community land trusts offer affordable housing choices

An army of contractors has been busy for weeks fixing up an aging home on West Galveston Street in central Chandler. They’re replacing energy-inefficient windows, bringing the electrical system up to standards and expanding a tiny bathroom in the 60-year-old house.

It is not the work of some out-of-state investor hoping to flip the property for profit.

It will be added to a growing pool of affordable housing in Chandler made possible through a community land trust. The trust is a way cities can increase their housing stock while ensuring that some homes remain affordable.

Newtown Community Development Corp., a Tempe non-profit, operates land trusts in Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale and Tempe.

 Read more:  Community land trusts offer affordable housing choices

$150,000 grant from bank to help first-time homebuyers in Chandler

The partnership between Chandler and the Newtown Community Development Corp., in working to put first-time homebuyers into empty houses, got a boost recently.

Newtown, the Tempe-based non-profit organization that administers much of Chandler’s neighborhood stabilization efforts, received a $150,000 Priority Markets Grant Friday from Wells Fargo bank. The money will be used to bolster the down-payment assistance program for first-time buyers and help set up a rotating loan fund for repairs to existing homes in the program.

Newtown Executive Director Allen Carlson said $100,000 of the money would be combined with $200,000 in existing funds for down-payment assistance. The remaining $50,000 from the grant would start the loan fund.

Read more: $150,000 grant from bank to help first-time homebuyers in Chandler