What’s at stake?
The goal of the land trust model is to keep homes not only affordable but also in the hands of the local community, rather than investment firms or speculators.
Fresno’s first-ever community land trust-owned home went on the market Wednesday in the city’s South Tower neighborhood.
The single-family home, located on Farris Avenue just north of Belmont, was purchased and renovated by the South Tower Community Land Trust over the past year-and-a-half.
Now, it’s for sale for $215,000, well under the neighborhood’s median home price of about $345,000, according to June figures from Redfin. That makes it the latest affordable home available for a Fresno family — with an eligible income level — to purchase.
The South Tower development is part of a growing number of community land trust-owned homes across California. The goal of the land trust model is to keep homes not only affordable but also in the hands of the local community, rather than investment firms or speculators.
To that end, while an eligible Fresno family will own the home on Farris Avenue, the South Tower Community Land Trust will maintain ownership of the land and lease it to the buyer — a provision that brings the price down.
“This home was built in 1925, so it’s now 100 years old. With the new homeowner signing a 99-year land lease,” said Kiel Lopez-Schmidt, executive director of the South Tower land trust at a news conference Wednesday, “we’re committing for this home to be affordable for the next century.”
“Our only concern is home ownership that’s affordable for real-life human beings,” said local realtor Joe Haydock who’s helping sell the home — as opposed to speculators that “may or may not do a good job of renovating the home,” he added.
The eventual buyer will also agree to “sell at the same affordable rate they bought it” if they choose to list the home someday, according to a news release from the land trust.
But the question remains whether this work can be replicated elsewhere in the city. The Farris Avenue project cost roughly $300,000 between the purchase of the property and several renovations, including installing a new roof and A/C system. That funding came from a Heron Foundation grant, Lopez-Schmidt said.
So far, the South Tower Community Land Trust has worked on this and other affordable housing projects without any government funding.
Despite that, Lopez-Schmidt believes their housing work can expand.
“Each of these costs our organization about $100,000 all told,” given the roughly $200,000 they’ll earn back from the sale of the house, he said. “So this is, I think, a replicable model for us to be able to raise that money from foundations.”
He added that having a few projects under their organization’s belt could make them more competitive for state and federal funding programs going forward, like the Permanent Local Housing Allocation and the Community Development Block Grant programs (though the latter faces an uncertain future under the Trump administration).
More land trust projects in the works for Fresno
There are more housing projects coming down the pike from the South Tower land trust as well, Lopez-Schmidt said.
That includes two accessory dwelling units behind the house on Farris Avenue.
The land trust is also working to develop roughly six cottage homes in a vacant lot covering about two-thirds of an acre on San Pablo Avenue.
The San Pablo project is in “pre-development,” Lopez-Schmidt said, including conducting soil tests and working on a conceptual design. The land trust is currently raising funds for construction.
For each land purchase the trust makes, Lopez-Schmidt said the organization will donate 10% of the land value to an indigenous organization — an effort to go “beyond land acknowledgement” as they build on the ancestral home of Native American tribes.
For the Farris Avenue home, the South Tower Community Land Trust donated $7,500 to the Sierra Tribal Consortium, a substance abuse treatment center focused on serving local Native American communities.
The affordable housing crisis
Multiple speakers at Wednesday’s news conference pointed to the land trust model as one piece of the puzzle of addressing Fresno’s — and California’s — affordable housing crisis.
A report last year from the California Association of Realtors showed that only 33% of Fresno County residents could afford to purchase a home assuming a 20% down payment.
The South Tower Community Land Trust is among 40 land trusts in the state that have helped secure roughly 1,600 homes for roughly 3,500 California residents, said Jacky Rivera of the California Community Land Trust Network at Wednesday’s news conference.
“It will take groups that are forward-thinking, like land trusts, that will allow us to find ways to have affordability for housing,” said Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who has filed paperwork to run for the Fresno City Council District 3 seat in 2026, which represents areas like South Tower.
“There are many homes just like this that need to be renovated,” he added, “that need to be rehabilitated, that need community members, neighbors looking after neighbors.”
Lopez-Schmidt pointed to other organizations working on similar housing projects in the city, including the Central California Land Trust.
Haydock, who co-chairs the Fresno Association of Realtors’ Fair Housing & Diversity Committee, stressed that the heavy lift of addressing affordable housing gaps can’t just fall on nonprofits alone, however.
“It is in our community’s interest for not only nonprofits, but also our government,” he said, “to promote affordable housing.”
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