Clark County’s Welcome Home Community Land Trust is working to provide residents with homeownership opportunities they might not otherwise have access to.
Rebecca Place, which broke ground in December at Rebecca Road and West Tropical Parkway in Las Vegas, is designed to offer what Clark County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick called “attainable” housing for hardworking residents, including nurses, teachers and police officers.
“This is housing that the person who picks up your trash will qualify for,” Kirkpatrick said. “This is the secretary in the office that will qualify. This is probably yourself that may qualify. So this is all those hardworking Clark County residents out there that we rely on every single day.”
Rebecca Place will contain 30 homes for homeowners with a minimum credit score of 640 and up to 100% of area median income (AMI), according to the Clark County website.
The community land trust, established by the Clark County Commissioners, owns the land beneath the homes while the homeowners own the home itself. The trust then ensures the homes are available for future generations of homeowners upon resale, per the Clark County website.
“It takes a lot of work,” Kirkpatrick said. “I am super grateful that Clark County decided that we were all in. We hired the staff. We have an entire department now so that we can manage it. And I just really think that it’s a big task.”
The Welcome Home Community Land Trust’s development of Rebecca Place is the first of its kind in Clark County, according to a news release.
“A community land trust is not new,” Kirkpatrick emphasized. “It’s new to Nevada. It’s new to Clark County. And really it allows a variety of projects to come through.”
The seeds of the project were planted quite a few years ago, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when Kirkpatrick said housing costs were rising and she and the county wanted to find a way for people within “that missing middle” to own a home at some point in their career.
They even found that many of their own government employees couldn’t qualify for the rising cost of a house, she said.
“And here we are today,” Kirkpatrick said in January. “We have a groundbreaking, and eight months from now we hope to have some homes built.”
That includes attainable-housing projects like Rebecca Place.
“In the world we live in, it’s tough,” said Todd Stratton, president of Kavison Homes. “Housing is tough. The young people struggle getting a house, and it’s just getting worse and worse each year. And you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution, and the county’s chosen to be a part of the solution. And that’s a big part of why I’m doing this.”
Stratton said he had a vision for what affordable housing should look like and took it to the Clark County Commissioners even before winning the request for proposal (RFP) to partner in the project.
Kavison Homes is also developing the second Welcome Home Community Land Trust development at Clark County — Cactus Trails, which will feature about 210 homes on land secured by Bureau of Land Management for homebuyers up to 80% AMI, according to Clark County’s website.
Rebecca Place differs from Cactus Trails in that the lots and homes are bigger and homeowners can have up to 100% AMI, Stratton said. That means they can own a 2,300-square-foot single-story on a 7,000-square-foot lot for around $390,000, he said.
“You’re not going to see that kind of value anywhere,” Stratton said. “That would normally retail at probably $600,000 — probably actually closer to seven,” he said. “So it’s a great opportunity for people that fit that AMI criteria.”
People making $75,000 to $95,000 would be unlikely to afford these homes otherwise, Stratton said. But the scenario of Rebecca Place makes it possible.
“So that’s where you bring your firefighters, your policemen and things like that,” he said.
Between Rebecca Place and Cactus Trails, the community land trust is serving two different price points in Las Vegas — not just one, Stratton said.
For Stratton, who grew up in Las Vegas, participating in the developments is an opportunity to give back to the community and help dozens of families.
“I’ve always wanted to give back,” he said. “This is a great way for us to do so, and to really make a true impact in the county. And then from a small private builder — we’re always looking for ways to stand out and do things a little bit differently from the large public builders. And this was one of those opportunities.”
People should be in a stable environment regardless of their income, Kirkpatrick said. Rebecca Place offers housing that is attainable based on one’s salary.
“We took some of our dollars every budget cycle, and we set them aside, and we put them into our community land trust so that we can fill the gap, because that’s really what’s happening to that missing middle is — there’s a gap,” she said. “There’s a gap between down payment assistance; there’s a gap between what that cost is really going to be.”
For many years in Las Vegas, a mansion could be purchased for less than $1 million, and the median housing price was $225,000, Kirkpatrick claimed.
That’s no longer the case, she said.
“We wanted to be ready when we got here,” Kirkpatrick said. “And we are ready, and we’re excited to keep moving forward.”