The Project

The heart of the creation of this TAOS COMMUNITY HOUSING AND TRUST (CLT) is to provide Taos’ teachers, first responders, health care providers, elders, small business owners, and service industry workers in the Taos community at large, the opportunity to build and own their home.

In the existing market, the average price of a home in Taos is $480,000, up from $350,000 one year ago. The average income in Taos for a family of four is approximately $40,000 a year. Homeownership is not even a distant dream. Homeownership is the building block for wealth for U.S. citizens who can buy a home. For the “Missing Middle” this development is to serve, is for those in the $50,000 to $75,000 annual income range. The average home price is Taos is still out of reach of this segment of our workforce.

The COMMUNITY HOUSING AND LAND Trust is designed as a New Mexico non-profit 501(c)(3). The CLT ownership of the land, and the cost of infrastructure for roads, and the fire department Well in partnership with a Mutual Domestic Community Water Association well removes the cost of the land and the infrastructure of the development from the cost of the home. This would save each home approximately $70,000+. This will provide local working full-time first-time home buyers with a realistic opportunity to build and own a home.

Resident Eligibility

The COMMUNITY HOUSING AND LAND Trust By-Laws would restrict residents to:

  • working local residents;
  • those qualified under state and federal criteria as lower-income residents but who do not qualify for lower income housing tax credit funding (LIHTC);
  • sustainable very energy efficient all electric homes with solar power provided by Kit Carson Rural Electric Co-op and catchment for water. The water for structures within the CLT would be supplemented by the MDCWA
  • require the home owners to commit to a minimum five to seven-year ownership before selling to ensure long term affordability.

Community

The homes will be built on this land, with community services and employment opportunities for the residents provided by the commercial businesses. Homeowners would enter into 99-year renewable leases with the CLT for the parcel on which the structure is built.

A CLT provides the means for the homes to remain permanently sustainable AND affordable, providing successful homeownership opportunities and wealth building for generations of limited income families. This CLT will address Taos’s huge disparity between the average income of Taos County workers and the median price of a Taos home. It is well known to all the governing bodies in Taos County that this disparity in our County is greater than any other county in New Mexico.