Conservation-Based Affordable Housing: Improving the Nature of Affordable Housing to Protect Place and People By Kendra J. Briechle The Conservation Fund June 2006 About The Conservation Fund The Conservation Fund is the nation's foremost nonprofit dedicated to protecting America's land and water legacy. Seeking innovative conservation solutions for the 21st century, the Fund integrates economic and environmental goals. Since its founding in 1985, the Fund has helped its partners safeguard wildlife habitat, working landscapes, community greenspace, and historic sites totaling more than 5 million acres. The Fund assists business, government, community and conservation nonprofit organizations work toward sustainable use of natural resources as a tool for economic development. With 1% fund raising costs and 96% program allocation, The Conservation Fund has gained top ratings by both the American Institute of Philanthropy and Charity Navigator. This study of Conservation Based Affordable Housing is a project of The Fund's Center for Conservation and Development. Working with the private sector, conservation and professional organizations, and public officials, the Center seeks to enhance the quality of life in communities by strengthening local economic opportunities and ensuring protection of the nation's green infrastructure. Center initiatives are improving American land protection and land use through a unique vision pairing smarter conservation with smarter development. Executive Summary Conservation-Based Affordable Housing: Improving the Nature of Affordable Housing to Protect Place and People spotlights the opportunity to develop housing for low- and moderate-income residents and also protect natural and working landscapes. These case studies, information about limited development as a conservation tool, and a perspective on where this trend may be headed are part of the Fund's report. For decades, proponents of land conservation and affordable housing have rarely seen the common ground they might occupy. Instead of collaborating, principals from these two interests competed over development proposals and scarce funding. Thankfully, new approaches are helping communities move away from an us-versus-them debate and toward recognition of the connections, and even the benefits, of integrating land conservation and development. Smart growth is prompting new partnerships between former adversaries in communities nationwide. Sustainability has moved beyond a mere buzzword to become a way of doing business for an increasing number of businesses and government leaders. Increasingly business, land development, and environmental professionals, along with local and state government officials, are recognizing the benefits of greater integration between the built environment and nature. At the same time, land conservation and housing professionals are experiencing unprecedented challenges to protecting places and providing for people. The accelerating consumption and fragmentation of open space is the number one challenge to the preservation of natural areas. Each year more than two million acres of farms, woodlands, and natural areas are developed. The results too often have produced subdivisions amid Civil War battlefields, isolated and unproductive farms, fragmented wildlife habitat, and damaging stormwater discharges into wetlands and waterways. These headlines are joined with others that report a widening gap between wages and housing costs. In Las Vegas and Lincoln, Seattle and Sarasota, and places in between, housing prices are accelerating faster than wage increases, exacerbating the housing shortage for low- and moderate-income community members such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that low-income workers are priced out of housing markets across the country. In 2005, nearly 95 million people, 35 percent of U.S. households, had some type of housing problem. The Response The Conservation Fund recognizes that sustainable communities have good jobs, adequate housing, and a strong sense of place derived from local natural and cultural resources. To this end, the Fund pioneers a balanced approach to land conservation that integrates economic and environmental objectives. The Conservation Fund embarked on its Conservation Based Affordable Housing study to discover whether conservation-based collaboration and market-based mechanisms could integrate community, economic, and environmental goals. Green building focuses on material composition, energy, and water use, but conservation development adds more emphasis on protection of the land and water resources. While the body of case material for conservation developments is growing, the well-known project examples are limited almost exclusively to the upper end of the housing market. To this end, The Conservation Fund set out to uncover and document conservation developments for the low- and middle-income housing market. The Findings The study details 16 successful examples of conservation-based affordable housing, ranging across urban, suburban, and rural communities. The profiles document each development's housing and conservation features, while providing background on design and financing, as well as information on the protection and stewardship of the housing and conservation land. The study also provides the lessons learned from the developers, land trusts, local governments, and housing organizations behind these developments, including site assessment, public support, and financing. Communities can provide well-designed homes for low- and moderate-income residents as well as preserve treasured community lands. The profiled developments provided between 2 and 1,200 affordable homes and from 7 to 1,500 acres of open space. All but two of the developments, both urban infill redevelopment sites, provided more than 50 percent open space for a variety of conservation purposes. Conservation-based affordable housing can exist in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Successful examples range in age from 30 years old to as recent as 2005. The innovative leadership behind these developments required varied and unusual partnerships between private developers, local governments, land trusts, housing organizations, and other nonprofit groups. Partnerships among diverse organizations allow them to share skills and reduce risk to any one organization. New funding sources can spring from the pairing of land conservation and affordable housing. This counters the assumption that affordable housing or land conservation drives up costs. By addressing community needs for housing and natural resource protection together and engaging community members in the process, conservation-based affordable housing developments can forge new public and political support. The best conservation-based affordable housing examples reflect the need for connections to ensure the strategic protection of conservation areas, appropriate to the conservation intent, and the location of housing in a pattern that least disturbs the resources while ideally placed close to jobs, services, and transit opportunities, appropriate to the landscape setting. Introduction Land conservation is guided by a passion for special places and natural resources coupled with the desire to protect this legacy for future generations. In recent years, the stunning increase in land development and the accompanying consumption and fragmentation of farms, forests, and green space have led to the realization that environmental protection must stretch beyond traditional bounds. In response, some in the conservation community have developed a richer strategy toward land protection, recognizing, for example, that economic growth can and should complement land conservation and that development can also be the means to preserve, protect, and maintain land. Green infrastructure, conservation development, and the protection of working farms and forests all reflect new practices in land conservation that shift from preservation of nature for nature's sake, or a single-purpose approach, towards a conservation strategy that realizes multiple goals and benefits. In a parallel vein, the concern for people and their need for quality housing guide affordable housing advocates. Forces similar to those challenging land conservation organizations are also prompting housing advocates to become more strategic. The real estate boom and rising land and housing prices have increased the housing crisis in communities across the country. Low- and moderate-income workers are priced out of housing markets across the country as increases in housing costs surpass wage increases. Affordable housing organizations have responded by forging partnerships with traditional and nontraditional allies, advocating for smart growth, community revitalization, adaptive reuse, and economic development. Both conservation and housing advocates have realized the benefits of addressing multiple community goals. Communities can benefit from more strategic and integrated approaches to housing and conservation. One tool for more strategic conservation pairs land conservation and development, using environmentally sensitive design to protect specific natural features or systems, reduce the construction footprint, and create livable communities. With conservation development, landowners conserve natural resources on private lands providing a different consumer housing choice in the marketplace: residences alongside high-quality protected conservation land. Conservation development communities such as Prairie Crossing, Jackson Meadows, and the Fields of St. Croix reflect high standards of development and conservation. Those private developments demonstrate that businesses and individuals value a good view and access to green space, that adjacency to protected land translates to a sales premium, and that private resources can provide the means to permanently protect natural resources. Other conservation developments have been led by conservation land trusts, local governments, and other nonprofit organizations. While the body of case material for conservation developments is growing, project examples are limited almost exclusively to the upper end of the housing market. For the low- to middle-income housing market, little research has been done to document case studies of development projects. This study aims to address that gap. Why This Link? The Connection between Land Conservation and Affordable Housing Forty years ago, the passage of the Land and Water Conservation Fund provided federal funds for parks, natural areas, and outdoor recreation, resulting in millions of acres of protected land across the country. But since the 1980s the amount of federal and state monies for land conservation has slowly dropped. At the same time, the pace of development across the United States has accelerated dramatically, reaching 11.2 million total acres developed in the years between 1992 and 1997. While grassroots support for land conservation has swelled, the conservation community just does not have enough funds to purchase all the land it wants to protect. In addition, the land conservation community has frequently worked fervently to save the farm but in its singular focus on one property, has lost the farming, or a similar broad conservation purpose. It is vitally important to step back, identify the root causes of loss of natural areas, set community priorities, and use conservation techniques and resources to resolve those problems and realize those priorities. A different course is needed, one that sets priorities, stresses multiple benefits, and makes wise use of limited resources. Gretchen Schuler with the town of Wayland, Massachusetts, says in today's world there's not a way to preserve a lot of land outright so we must work strategically in order to protect resources and simultaneously achieve multiple goals. The inclusion of affordable housing can, as in the case of other forms of conservation development, generate new sources of funding to conserve land, while helping meet a public need. In addition, many of our country's significant natural areas are also the poorest communities or have sizable numbers of low-income residents. Economically distressed, high amenity areas, such as the southern Appalachians, the South Carolina Sea Islands, or the Southwest, have long-time residents being displaced by second-home, retirement, or resort development, creating a desperate need for affordable housing. In other treasured natural areas, a visitor industry is driving the demand for retirement or second homes, using outside money to push up local housing prices and challenging the cost of living for long-time residents. Many areas across the country experience a dominant second-home industry, where visitors attracted by the natural beauty decide to purchase retirement or vacation homes. Other areas just feel the pinch of rapid or poorly planned growth that displaces low-income renters or tenants, as long-time landowners sell land for development. And so many communities today require larger lots for each proposed dwelling. In many places housing prices are accelerating faster than wage increases, exacerbating the housing shortage. For example, the Martha's Vineyard Commission documented the accelerating housing affordability gap, the gap between maximum home cost eligibility and median sales price, on the island rose from $182,500 in 2000 to $343,600 in 2004. On Block Island, which had the state's highest priced homes in 2005, the gap increased 198 percent between 1998 and 2004, according to a report from HousingWorks RI. Seasonal variations in housing demand as well as second-home buyers with high income may pinch the ability of local residents to locate year-round affordable housing. The conservation-based affordable housing developments profiled herein tend to be in areas with rapidly rising or high incomes. This does not mean that such developments could not take place in lower-income areas. The author uncovered a few developments proposed for lower-income landscapes but these have not yet borne fruit. The Conservation Fund has always recognized the need for a more strategic approach to conservation, one that achieves both economic and conservation goals. The Fund has engaged in, studied, and promoted conservation development as one tool within strategic conservation planning. In so doing, it noted the overwhelming focus on high-end conservation development. Conservation developments are sometimes described as golf course communities without the golf course. Instead of the fairways, residents pay a premium for a view of protected farms, forests, wetlands, or waterways. While such development projects can, and often do, result in good conservation outcomes, this study was an attempt to locate and document the projects that instead paired affordable housing with land conservation. While there are not an abundance of such developments, the profiles here underscore the diversity of geographies, scales, forms, and techniques. Even more promising is the strategic mindset of the individuals and organizations involved in such projects that led to multiple benefits for their communities and neighbors. Such a mindset came from housing and conservation advocates as well as developers, and was realized in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Warren Hanson, president and CEO of Greater Minnesota Housing Fund stated, open space can and should always figure into the planning of affordable housing. His organization has been pushing for the integration of the two areas and its Building Better Communities program holds promise for achieving it. Others found it a natural fit. Keith Lewis of Block Island, Rhode Island, wrote in the Block Island Times, on an island this size, affordable housing and conservation are related issues simply because both deal with scarce acres. Both have to contend with powerful, external market forces beyond their control. Blaming one another is counterproductive. Instead they came together at the island's Beacon Hill Lane project. Mark Zelnick, former executive director of the Franklin Land Trust and coordinator of the Loomis Farm project, expressed his view that the conservation community has a moral imperative to help provide affordable housing. As land conservation may limit the amount of developable land, land prices may rise due to less land availability or because of the increased desirability of the community. The community must recognize its broader needs and ensure that conservation does not displace long-time residents and their offspring from their hometowns. It ain't easy to combine conservation and affordable housing, says Stephen Johnson of Sudbury Valley Trust. But his involvement in the Greenways project led him to comment that he will go to his grave thinking it's the best project I've ever worked on. Working together enabled his group and others to meet numerous important public purposes that we couldn't have achieved alone. Both the results achieved and the partnership between the land trust and the municipality to accomplish a variety of public purposes provide a model for the conservation and housing communities. Darby Bradley of the Vermont Land Trust spoke of the importance of thinking and planning for community needs more strategically. VLT tries to get communities think about where they want conservation and where they want development ahead of time. Land adjacent to a village is generally a more logical location for affordable housing or a town expansion. VLT set aside several parcels for affordable housing in more rural locations but ultimately decided that they weren't appropriate given their location far from a village and its services. A more strategic approach to land conservation and development can help make the link between conservation and affordable housing. It can also help generate funds, new sources to support both areas through a more cooperative approach, a view expressed by professionals on the nonprofit side and on the private developer side. In addition to being the right thing to do, affordable housing in a conservation setting can also provide a market opportunity. Land conservation and affordable housing may not be paired all the time. But what this research demonstrates is that they can be paired successfully, with good outcomes for both housing access and land conservation. Conservation-based affordable housing should be viewed as a strategy for project managers in both camps and indeed for developers and serve as a means to broaden a project's support when well integrated. Project Case Studies The following 15 profiles document 16 development projects that successfully paired conservation and affordable housing: Battle Road Farm in Lincoln, Massachusetts features 48 affordable units of the 120-unit development on 47 acres with 27 acres of open space adjacent to 750-acre Minute Man National Park. Beacon Hill Lane on Block Island, Rhode Island provides 7 single-family affordable homes on 12 acres with 7 acres protected open space connecting to 500 acres of protected land and the Great Salt Pond. Codman Farm in Lincoln, Massachusetts combined historic preservation and agricultural land protection with 72 affordable units in the Lincoln Woods housing cooperative on 241 acres with 210 acres of protected farmland and woodland. Great Elms in Harvard, Massachusetts protected 85 acres of conservation land on a 133-acre site while maintaining 5 existing affordable rental units on the property. Greenways-Paine Estate in Wayland, Massachusetts preserved 87 acres of the 166-acre site while providing 4 single-family affordable homes and senior housing facilities adjacent to the 3,600-acre Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. Island Cohousing in West Tisbury, Massachusetts created a 16-home cohousing community with 4 permanently affordable units and 4 moderate-income units on 30 acres with 85 percent open space including community gardens and forest. Jay Village in Jay, Vermont donated 20 acres for 4 affordable homes connecting to 282 acres of conserved recreation land with trails linking to Vermont's end-to-end cross-country ski trail. Lime Kiln Apartments/Winooski Gorge in South Burlington, Vermont paired 38 affordable rental apartments with 10 acres of dramatic limestone cliffs and rare habitat protected as part of a State Natural Heritage site. Loomis Farm in Ashfield, Massachusetts protected 180 acres of farmland and 59 acres of woodlands on the 410-acre site while creating 2 affordable units among 9 total houselots. Martin Farms and Taylor Meadow in Hancock and Rochester, Vermont conserved 1,500 acres of dairy farm while providing 5 affordable single-family homes on a 21-acre municipal site with recreational land. OPAL Commons and Bonnie Brae on Orcas Island, Washington created 42 affordable single-family homes on 20 acres total with nearly 12 acres of protected common land including forest and community gardens. Sepiessa Point Apartments in West Tisbury, Massachusetts provides 4 affordable rental units on 167 acres with 164 acres preserved as nature preserve with 7,300 feet of shoreline along Tisbury Great Pond. Stapleton in Denver, Colorado is the nation's largest infill development redeveloping the former airport into a mixed-use community with 1,200 affordable units planned among 12,000 total units on 4,700 acres with 1,100 acres of parks and open space. Starlake Housing and Farrell Farm in Norwich, Vermont provides 14 affordable single-family homes on 15 acres with 110 acres of conserved farmland actively producing organic food. Wellington Neighborhood in Breckenridge, Colorado restored a contaminated former gold mine site creating 98 affordable homes among 122 total units on 85 acres with 21 acres open space linking to White River National Forest. Lessons Learned The research demonstrates the variety of approaches that can be used to achieve conservation-based affordable housing and a number of lessons for others interested in such pairing. Of greatest import is the realization that the two areas can be successfully combined, with positive outcomes for both land use and housing needs. Know the land. Conservation-based affordable housing development projects benefit from knowing the land. Comprehensive or site planning, public involvement, and upfront site and regional assessments help to document the on-site human uses and natural functions and to evaluate what kind of development, if any, is appropriate, what land to conserve, and what restoration is needed or possible. Conservation should be deliberate and protect more than otherwise undevelopable land. The resulting plan should ensure that the land with the highest conservation value is protected and that development avoids the most environmentally sensitive areas. Work in partnership. By their nature, the combination of affordable housing and land conservation begs for partnership and its many benefits. Keith Lewis of Block Island's Beacon Hill Lane project sang the praises of partnership noting there's much to be said for these joint efforts, partners bring different skills to the table, partnerships spread the risks. Build support. Given the complexity of dual mission projects, community support was critical. Part of building support includes knowing the people and engaging community members in the design process. Relationships within the community are often critical to the support and success of the projects. Public meetings and outreach helped build support. Play the right role. Some conservation organizations have engaged in limited development projects and some housing groups have protected natural areas. A few groups have married the housing and conservation practice. But these are currently somewhat unusual cases. Many involved in conservation-based affordable housing stressed the importance of participants knowing their proper roles and drawing on others to complement the project. Meet community needs. Conservation based affordable housing projects frequently meet several objectives. In addition to helping meet the first-tier needs of housing for low- and moderate-income residents and protecting valued landscapes in the community, some efforts also addressed or are striving to meet other community needs including recreational land, farming and forestry jobs, maintenance of local character, restoration of natural systems, and creation of community meeting places. Financing can come from many sources. Due to their unusual nature the projects drew on a variety of funding sources including local private and public support, traditional bank loans, federal or state funds, and private market funding to conserve natural areas and to build affordable housing. Some projects also benefited from donations of housing or land to launch their efforts. Know the market. Market fluctuations can affect the project's financial picture, its funding sources and ultimate profit or break-even point. Even with great planning, some of the groups completed one project but found themselves unable to launch another because the local market no longer made such projects feasible. Regulations can help or hinder. The effect of local and state regulations were mixed for these projects. Local governments often require protection of natural areas or the provision of affordable housing. But state or local requirements can also limit creativity or restrict good outcomes. Given the public benefit, the projects might engender greater flexibility or even be offered streamlined approval or incentives. Design for the long term. Just as protecting natural resources, wildlife habitats, farms, and forests leaves a land legacy for future generations, the built environment should also be designed as the next great historic neighborhood. The affordable housing should be well built as well as low-cost. Housing for low- and moderate-income residents should neither be shabby nor second-rate but rather built to last. Complexity fosters creativity. More than one of the participants in the dual goal projects confessed that it ain't easy to do them. Some of them laughed as they tried to describe the complex negotiations and multiple parties involved in the deals. But the very complexity involved in realizing multiple objectives often stimulated creativity, and sometimes made the project feasible through public and political buy-in. Stewardship equals handle with care. Both the affordable housing and open space need to be protected and managed properly to ensure their permanent status in the community, maximizing the benefits of each while minimizing potential conflicts. Therefore, contracts, land deals, and long-term organized oversight need to be structured and managed carefully. The roots are many, the motivations are mixed. Conservation-based affordable housing stems from a wide variety of motivations. Some of the project organizers expressed a moral obligation or a principled commitment to combine the two. Many of the combined projects grew out of the desire to protect both the local character and sense of place, as expressed in both the natural and human landscapes. The Northeast is a leader. The conservation development movement started in the Northeast and have slowly taken hold elsewhere. Conservation-based affordable housing seems to follow a similar pattern. Some credit for this trend must go to the rich legacy of conservation in the Northeast with roots dating to the late 1800s. Choose the place and case carefully. Conservation-based affordable housing is not appropriate in every place or case. When considering a limited development, the conservation community needs to evaluate the extent to which a project contributes to landscape fragmentation or connectivity and what that means to the conservation objective at hand. Conclusion These projects inspire creativity. Projects like Stapleton, OPAL Commons, Wellington, and White Brook devised unusual and sometimes complex but inspiring solutions to common community challenges. They also require a deliberate and focused approach to make these efforts real. These projects express the realization of vision and commitment to community ideals of protecting land and providing for people. They demonstrate the interconnectedness of the natural and human systems and the complex solutions that create a win-win for all. Such distinctive combinations benefit communities by providing needed affordable housing and helping to protect the environment by preserving the landscape legacy. More than anything these examples demonstrate what can be achieved through will, commitment, and leadership. The Conservation Fund calls for a summit on conservation-based affordable housing. Leaders from all affected interests need to pioneer new partnerships to advance land conservation and development that serves people and places.