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Photo by Jim Craven Plumbers Eric Lacey, left, and Mel Hodson install pipe for homes built under the Ashland Community Land Trust program. The homes will sell for $90,000, less than half the price of an average Ashland house. A few affordable homes for Ashland Townhouses available to people with lower incomes By DANI DODGE ASHLAND -- In an attempt to allow people who work in Ashland to also buy a house in this tony town, the Ashland Community Land Trust is buying its first three townhouses. To learn more Here are two opportunities to learn more about the Ashland Community Land Trust and Ashland home ownership: The land trust will host an orientation meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 27 at Hillah Temple. Jeff Yegian of the Institute for Community Economics Western Division of Boulder, Colo., will speak. For more information, call Bill Molnar with Ashland's planning department at 488-5305 or Carlus Harris with ACCESS Inc. at 779-6691. The Southern Oregon Home Ownership Alliance will sponsor "The ABCs to Home Ownership, A Comprehensive Training for Home Ownership." The class will be taught in two three-hour sessions on from 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 26 and 27. The class is required for people who buy homes from the land trust. For more information, call 779-6691. "There's no way we can meet the entire need -- this is a drop in the bucket," said Carlus Harris, assistant manager of housing at ACCESS Inc. and a board member of the land trust. "But it's a golden drop." The houses in the Chautauqua Trace subdivision will sell to qualified homebuyers for $90,000, less than half of the $186,000 average price for a place in Ashland. There's one catch. The land trust continues to own the land under the house, while only the house is purchased. Only people who have worked or lived in Ashland for the past six months and make 80 percent or less of the county's median income are eligible. For a family of four, the qualifying annual income would be $31,050 or less. "We aren't saying it will be easy, because home ownership never is," Harris said. "But it is an opportunity that people wouldn't have had without the Ashland Community Land Trust -- the emphasis being on community." The land trust was incorporated as a nonprofit organization on Sept. 30. Its mission is to develop housing that stays affordable despite growth in home values, currently 4 to 8 percent a year. When the first buyers sell the property, they get back only what they put into the house and 1 percent-a-year appreciation. The house is then available at basically the same cost to the next buyer. The program got a $90,000 investment from the city of Ashland through federal Community Development Block Grant funds. Chautauqua Trace developer Russ Dale donated his profit on the three properties so the trust could buy them for $114,000 each. The subdivision, which has market-rate homes as well as others priced lower under the city's affordable housing program, is off of East Main Street and Tolman Creek Road. This week, builders are roughing the plumbing under the foundations of the three land trust units. They should be complete by mid-February, the builder said. One prospective buyer is Dan Trevallee, 47, of Ashland. An assistant manager at an Ashland bed-and-breakfast inn, he's had trouble getting together the down payment necessary for an Ashland home. "It seems to be a quick and affordable way to purchase a house in Ashland with next to nothing down," he said. "It would be a nice way to be able to stay in Ashland forever." City planning director John McLaughlin said the city, which worked with ACCESS Inc. to organize the land trust, is solidly behind the effort. "Those houses will always stay affordable ... and that opens up opportunities for people," he said. "And in areas where land values are high, it's a great option." House-buying seminars and a program to explain the land trust are planned for the last week of October. The trust is looking for prospective buyers as well as members, affiliates and benefactors. Members are Ashland residents who pay $10 annually and get to vote on land trust decisions. Affiliates pay the same dues, but live outside the city and cannot vote. Benefactors are people who give more than $10. All receive a quarterly newsletter and invitations to the nonprofit's social events. "Being a member is almost like being a volunteer," Harris said. "It's believing in the land trust and helping make it possible." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA