SHERIDAN — A new housing land trust development is taking shape in Laramie, as more houses are built in Sheridan’s Weston Village subdivision.
The Albany County Housing and Land Trust, a nonprofit organization that works in partnership with the Laramie Chamber Business Alliance, has recently begun to address the housing shortage in southeastern Wyoming.
Currently, Laramie builds only 60 homes per year due to infrastructure, land costs, a housing workforce shortage, material costs, regulations and bonding, among other issues. The goal is to increase the number of units built to 400 by 2030.
“We’ve been looking at everything housing-related in Laramie, because data shows we’re about 3,000 units behind by 2030,” said Brad Enzi, CEO and President of the Laramie Chamber Business Alliance. “We need to find a way to close that gap.”
Enzi said a working group in Laramie began studying possible solutions, focusing in particular on housing land trust developments in Sheridan, Jackson, and Bend, Ore. Sheridan’s housing land trust model evolved over the last several years into the Weston Village subdivision, which was led by the Sheridan County Attainable Housing Council.
In an August 5 letter of support to the John P. Ellbogen Foundation for an Albany County Housing and Land Trust startup operations grant request, Laramie Mayor Sharon Cumbie expressed “strong support” for the model on behalf of the Laramie City Council.
“All nine members of the council understand firsthand the severity of the housing challenges faced by our residents,” Cumbie wrote in a letter.
Rising living costs and a lack of affordable, secure housing “increasingly threaten the stability and well-being of families, seniors, workers, and the broader community we serve,” she added. The Albany County Housing and Land Trust has emerged as a “invaluable collaborator” in addressing the housing crisis, according to Cumbie.
The Laramie Chamber Business Alliance is currently establishing an Albany County land trust, funding the project through in-kind staff donations and fundraising. The land trust has identified land on which to build, but has yet to transfer it to the trust or publicly announce the location, Enzi stated.
“Our model will be similar to Sheridan’s, with the homeowner purchasing the home and us holding the long-term lease on the land.” “That is to keep housing affordable,” Enzi stated. “We determined that this entity must eventually become self-sustaining, with revenues from long-term leases and land sales serving as its funding mechanism.
“In the interim, we’re standing it up with local contributions,” he said later.
The Sheridan County Attainable Housing Council was established in 2022 as a collaboration between the city of Sheridan and Sheridan County to address housing issues in the community.
The SCAHC voted to use $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds for a housing land trust project led by the Sheridan County Housing Land Trust, a nonprofit run by Habitat for Humanity of the Eastern Bighorns.
The city and county contributed $3 million to infrastructure costs at the new Weston Village subdivision. There are now three completed homes on site, with more under construction as the SCHLT accepts applications for ownership.
“Building is going very fast at Weston Village, ahead of schedule,” said SCHLT Administrator Jamie Rivera. “We expect to complete the next five homes on a rolling basis beginning at the end of September.” “We’ll have houses ready every few months until all 30 are completed.”
The Laramie model is only a few years behind Sheridan, but it aims to address the same workforce housing need.
“We are discussing health care staff, teachers, city staff, and emergency services…” WyoTech is also experiencing significant growth, and we’re wondering how we’ll accommodate these employees. Enzi explained. “This project is really geared to that missing middle, workforce housing.”
The next step will be to transfer land to the trust, continue fundraising, and start developing the site.
“We’re hoping that this works. “Until you get one up and running, (you don’t know),” Enzi said, adding that the Albany County Housing and Land Trust is collaborating with the city of Laramie’s Urban Renewal Authority on issues such as tax increment financing and debt stacking to keep the homes affordable and available.
“What we have seen is that the price of housing has gone up, and we need to stabilize it for that middle, for the workforce,” Enzi told the crowd. “After we did our research, (a land trust) seems to be the best tool for stabilizing the middle.”
Housing land trust models are well-established elsewhere, but relatively new in Wyoming.
According to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the community land trust model has evolved in the United States for approximately 40 years. Since the early 1990s, local communities have formed nonprofit, community-based organizations with the goal of providing long-term affordable housing by owning land and leasing it to a homeowner.
There are approximately 160 community land trusts operating in the United States, covering nearly all states.
However, Sheridan’s is only Wyoming’s second such model. The Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust was established in 1991. Rivera stated that it is exciting to see another model develop.
“The coastal areas have had (housing land trust developments) for awhile, but with the way housing is going in Wyoming, it’s nice to see Sheridan not being the only place to develop this model today,” said Rivera.
Enzi stated that “pioneer communities” such as Jackson, Sheridan, and other western cities have been eager to share what they have learned.
“They are very willing to say, ‘Here’s what we’ve learned,’ and we get the benefit of knowing what worked in Jackson and what worked at the Sheridan inception. “We can build on the foundation that other communities have laid and make it work for Laramie,” Enzi said. “That helps demystify it a little bit, because it’s a different concept in addressing Wyoming’s housing problems.”
Rivera stated that members of the SCHLT are “more than willing” to share what they have learned.
“We relied heavily on other land trusts to help us, and it’s right for us to help others in the same regard,” she told me. “Our goal is to set an example for other towns to follow.” This week, I also discussed our land trust model with another city councilman from another location.
