Lake Champlain Land Trust

Lake Champlain Land Trust is a private, non-profit organization that permanently conserves Lake Champlain islands and shoreline. With the help of neighbors, communities, and Vermont foundations and businesses, we have conserved thousands of acres of public hiking trails, town beaches, and low impact natural areas. The stakes are high. As Vermonters, we appreciate that open space, public access, and habitat preservation are essential to the quality of all our lives. The land we conserve will remain forever open and free from development; it remains open to those who love the land, and to the wildlife that relies on it. We hope you will spend some time learning about us. Take a tour of some of the lands we've conserved, or contact us with your questions and comments. Click here to read more.

Leaders of a Burlington nonprofit agency will receive a $100,000 grant from the Ford Foundation at an awards ceremony in New York today. ... The Land Trust has improved housing availability in the Champlain Valley for those who might otherwise never afford their own home, Lipsky said. ... Torpy and Houghton will use the money to fund a staff position and on computer upgrades, said Houghton, who has worked for the group for 15 years. The Land Trust, founded in 1984, provides prospective homeowners with a subsidy and help obtaining low-interest loans in return for an agreement on how the home will be resold. The homeowner agrees to take only 25 percent of the resale profit, Torpy said. The organization then rolls the remaining 75 percent into the subsidy attached to the house enabling the next owner to purchase the home below market value, Houghton said.

Burlington Community Land Trust, chartered as a nonprofit corporation in 1984 to help those with low and moderate incomes buy homes, is accomplishing what it was set up to do, according to a land trust-commissioned study released this week. The study, prepared by local development consultant John Davis and land trust staffer Amy Demetrowitz, scrutinized the Land Trust's records of the 259 single-family house and condominiums sold since 1984 -- all to first-time homebuyers -- and the 97 land trust properties that have been resold since 1988. The homes were bought by families unable to put together the down-payments and mortgage payments to buy on the open market. Brenda Torpy, Burlington Community Land Trust co-director, said the study demonstrated that land trust programs did not -- as some critics have charged -- interfere with open-market home sales. Two open-market real estate experts agree. "I think the land trust provides a very good service," said David Gray, Click here to read more.