Community Land Trusts and Housing Cooperatives - CPG Webinar

This webinar looks at ways co-op lawyers can assist with housing solutions.

In this webinar, Attorney Kristin King-Ries will first provide an overview of community land trusts (CLTs), with a focus on matters of legal concern. Next, Attorney Christina Oatfield will focus on how CLTs can work with housing cooperatives, looking at both zero-equity and limited-equity cooperatives. Then Sandy Bishop, Executive Director of Lopez Community Land Trust, will present a case study of Lopez CLT, which has woven housing cooperatives into the way they operate as a CLT. We will end with an opportunity for conversation and Q&A.

Panelists:

Kristin King-Ries is an attorney representing nonprofit community land trusts throughout the U.S. on a range of legal matters. She also consults with Agrarian Trust and the Vermont Law School's Center for Agriculture and Food Systems on adapting shared equity models to farmland and farmer housing. Kristin is a founding member of the Montana Agrarian Commons. Currently she serves on the board of the Northwest Montana Community Land Trust and co-chairs the Advocacy Committee of the Northwest Community Land Trust Coalition. Prior to opening a private practice, she served as general counsel to Trust Montana. Kristin is a new member of the Cooperative Professionals Guild. For links to publications and presentations, please see kingriesllc.com. 

Christina Oatfield is an attorney in Berkeley, California serving nonprofits and cooperatives of various types with their transactional legal needs and sometimes also legislative analysis and advocacy. She obtained her license to practice law through an uncommon path: by studying under the guidance of practicing attorneys through the California Office Study Program, which is an independent study alternative to law school. During her apprenticeship path to becoming an attorney she studied at Cutting Edge Counsel and at the Sustainable Economies Law Center, both in Oakland, California. Prior to starting her own practice, Christina worked on staff at the Sustainable Economies Law Center for eight years leading legislative advocacy campaigns to advance homemade food sales, local agriculture, worker cooperatives, affordable housing, housing cooperatives, and local investing. Please see christinaoatfield.com.

Sandy Bishop serves as the Executive Director of Lopez Community Land Trust (LCLT). She was one of the original co-founders of LCLT in 1989. LCLT has been developing limited equity co-op housing since 1990. Sandy has tutored dozens of people who are engaged in start up CLT’s and co-op housing ventures, both in the US and internationally. She is always discovering the powerful ways community land trusts and co-ops can be used as a tool for land reform, permanent affordability and local empowerment. The work of LCLT has received both local and national recognition including GreenBuild, Home Depot Award of Excellence, the Living Building Challenge, Home Power and others.