New Developments add to the community land trusts in Yellow Springs and Cincinnati
In Season 1 Episode 20 of the Brick by Brick podcast, we featured two land trust organizations that create affordable housing in both Yellow Springs and Cincinnati, Ohio, respectively. Both non-profit organizations have added to their portfolios with new developments.
The Cascades
In August of 2025, Yellow Springs Home, Inc. officially finished phase one of their new senior development in the community. Phase one adds eight new rental units to their land trust and eventually they will have 22 rental units along with ten for-sale townhomes. Senior housing has been a demand in the Yellow Springs area for a while as noted in this 2017 Bowen National Research, Yellow Springs Home Assessment.
“Given the relatively large and growing base of seniors in the PSA (primary study area) and the lack of available senior-oriented independent living rentals and for-sale alternatives, there appears to be a need for additional senior housing” (pg 13).
Sustaining low-cost housing is the main point of the land trust. Emily Siebel, Executive Director of Yellow Springs Home, Inc. said when affordability periods end across the state, these homes will remain affordable. “What happens in year 15 or 30 when the state money or tax credit equity (for affordability) lifts. [Will certain properties] become market rate or will residents be displaced? We know that we have a forever commitment to maintaining the quality and affordability specifically to serve, residents of low to moderate income.”
Siebel said creating affordable housing isn’t easy but seeing one of the first residents move in made it all worth it.
Sharon Mohler and the Rollator
The first resident at the Cascades is a retired house cleaner named Sharon Mohler. She loves nature and loves to walk around but her old residence (an older Home, Inc. property) made it difficult to do both. “walking is becoming kind of dangerous for me over the rough ground. So they transferred me to here.”
There was also difficulty for her to get to her washer and dryer in her previous residence. In her new one floor unit, everything is on the same level. In addition to that, there are plenty of paths on the property for Mohler to walk with her handy rollator.
The senior property is positioned in an ideal space where there is rehabilitation facilities called Friends Care Community across the street. It’s right next to Miami Township fire rescue which provides EMS and nearby the Antioch College’s Wellness Center. It’s also only a half mile from downtown Yellow Springs and the property sits along a Green Cats accessible low cost bus line. To see the other components of the Cascades project, click here.
Chalfonte Place New Development
Further southwest in the New Avondale neighborhood in Cincinnati, Renting Partnerships has completed the renovations to their new ten-unit apartment. The ten-unit apartment is on Chalfonte Place, where Renting Partnerships has rehabilitated other units before. The ten-unit property was always on her mind while they were working in that neighborhood Margaret Spinney, co-founder of the alternative land trust organization, said that the neighborhood wanted more family housing.
Spinney added that in order to build communities, this economic model needs to be adopted at a larger scale. “[Land trusts] are an economic model that we need to prevent market forces from driving up the price of housing. We need to focus on building communities and making housing a place that people can call home.”
One of the residents grateful for her new home is retiree, Brenda Dixon.
“I get to see my family everyday”
Dixon is in her 70’s and moved into the ten-unit apartment in August of 2025. She feels at peace in her new space and appreciates the system of all of the tenants working to maintain the upkeep of the property. She says that in her new residence, “people respect each other. Everybody works here. It’s good here. I feel at home and I feel safe here. I love it.”
Another thing Dixon loves is being only a few steps away from her daughter and grandchildren who live in another property on the land trust right next to Dixon’s building. She helps her daughter by babysitting her grandchildren. “I get to see my family every day. I get to look straight into my daughter’s backyard to see her children playing. I feel whole here!”
Examples like Dixon is what keeps Spinney focused on ways to expand the land trust to provide more opportunities to local residents.
Renting Partnership Expansion
Spinney plans to step down from her position in the foreseeable future, but she says the work of the rental equity is far from over. “We have a group of volunteers who formed a committee to study areas where we can expand in Cincinnati. Over the next year they are hoping to explore what those possibilities could be. I hope they are able to do more than I was able to do.”
Spinney says these efforts are well worth it especially with many workers making the median income finding it hard to find housing in Cincinnati.
Yellow Springs Expansion
Siebel shares that in addition to completing the Cascades project, Home, Inc. is looking to form a coalition to see if there is a way they can acquire the market rate apartments in the area. “There is a generational turnover happening right now. Can we be in a position to intervene when some of these properties come up for sale and acquire them, and rehab them and place them into the land trust?”
The organization is currently in talks with different stakeholders and partners in Yellow Springs to meet the need for more affordable housing in the area.
Home Inc. is also looking to expand the land trust model out to Montgomery County. For the past three years they have been partnering with CO-OP Dayton to educate local residents about the land trust model so that they could incorporate it there. Siebel says the most important step in this implementation is to stress hyper local decision making. “Hyperlocal decision making and control is really important. Our goal is to co-create some governance models that will allow us to access the experience and capacity and power of a larger organization while still having hyperlocal decision making.” She says doing this allows residents to be an integral part of the development process. “It is necessary to place resident experience at the center of project development and decision making because residents are the experts of their own experience.”
Looking at both Home, Inc. and Renting Partnerships showcases land trusts where affordability, and equity share common ground. Siebel says that land trusts remain the best tool to create affordable housing and more. “Land trusts are a deeply democratic way of approaching land ownership, as well as making decisions that impact people’s lives.”
Hernz Laguerre Jr. – Multi-Media Journalist
Hernz is a Haitian American who was born and raised in Spring Valley, NY. He attended school at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where he learned to hone his skills as a storyteller. After graduating with his Bachelors in Broadcast and Digital Journalism and his Masters in Television Radio and Film, he went on to a career in media as a producer, reporter and freelance videographer for companies like ESPN and Court TV. He eventually moved to Detroit, where he worked as a Multimedia Journalist for The Detroit News and then the NPR affiliate, WDET, before starting his work with the Brick by Brick team at CET and ThinkTV. Hernz aims to produce stories that tell the bigger picture while doing his due diligence to educate and inform the public about the solutions-focused work being done in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.
