Irvine Community Land Trust in Favor of New Land Trust Bill

If passed, the legislation would bolster affordable housing opportunities by providing community land trusts across the state with a property-tax exemption from the point of acquisition of land to the point of sale of affordable homes.

Mark Asturias, executive director for ICLT, says, “Orange County is one of the most expensive places to live in the nation, in large part due to exorbitant housing costs. SB 1056 will go a long way to help ease the costs of affordable housing for both community land trusts and the homebuyers. We look forward to working with the California Community Land Trust Network and Senator Beall to pass this common-sense legislation and help the many families that would like to continue to call Orange County home.”

In a county where only 21 percent of residents can afford a median-priced home, the ICLT is an independent nonprofit organization that provides the city of Irvine with permanent affordable housing and homeownership solutions to low and moderate-income households. By acquiring and maintaining ownership of land with the purpose of building and providing affordable housing, the land trust can maintain affordability of homes on a permanent basis, ICLT reasons.

However, without this property tax exemption, currently afforded to similar nonprofit housing providers such as Habitat for Humanity, the ICLT faces huge financial burdens in land acquisition and homebuilding. Homeowners are responsible for property taxes upon sale, so these burdens are often passed off to the low-and moderate-income homeowners who already struggle to afford the county’s high housing costs.

Additionally, without this tax exemption, affordable housing projects in the city are threatened by further delay as the ICLT and partners find ways to cover the cost of property taxes during construction so that the full cost is not passed to homebuyers, according to ICLT.