The community land trust as a highway environmental impact mitigation tool

The proposed Newtown Pike Extension in Lexington, Kentucky, has the potential to cause significant displacement of low-income residents. Following Executive Order 12898, federal agencies have been required to consider environmental justice impacts of their policies and activities. Highway planners in Lexington have crafted a mitigation strategy that includes a community land trust, which is intended to provide permanent protection for the low-income community to be affected by the highway extension. Although the community land trust may be an attractive option for maintaining housing affordability and community cohesion, the idea must overcome some significant hurdles if it is going to be useful as an environmental impact mitigation tool. One problem is selling the idea of communal land ownership to African American and low-income households. Part of the challenge is to design a method for sharing capital gains that gives an adequate return to home buyers while maintaining affordability. Another difficulty concerns renters who are eligible for only limited relocation subsidies that in many cases will not be enough to cover the cost of new rental housing.