Land Trusts and Affordable Housing in Amherst: Ruth Hazzard’s Story

When Ruth Hazzard retired from teaching at the UMass Extension program, she longed to devote time to her passion for gardening. Unfortunately, the Logtown Road house where she had raised her family for 26 years had a north-facing sloped yard surrounded by trees, which received very little sunlight. This was in 2012, when the North Amherst Community Farm was trying to raise money by selling a housing lot at the east end of the farm, off of Pine Street. Hazzard and her partner Claude Tellier took a look at the sunny, spacious lot and fell in love with it. Hazzard’s brother, an architect, designed a house, and she and Tellier moved in.

They decided to rent the house on Logtown Road to help pay the mortgage on the new house. A series of families rented the house, and usually stayed only a year or two. But the latest resident expressed an interest in purchasing the house. With the mortgage on the new house paid off, Hazzard was amenable to selling the house on Logtown Road. She described the area as a “neighborhood at risk”, with more houses being sold to investors and rented to students. She said she did not want her house to become a student rental property. “It is a great family neighborhood, and I wanted it to stay that way,” she said.

In order to make the house affordable to the current tenant and to others who may purchase the house in the future, Hazzard worked with the Amherst Community Land Trust (ACLT)  to sell the house to the single mother who was living there. Hazzard explained that in 1983, she was a recently-divorced mother with two small children who needed a place to live. Her father had the means to purchase the three-bedroom home on Logtown Road for $74,000. When he died in 1989, the home became her own. 

Hazzard noted that having the home, mortgage free, allowed her to attend graduate school and build a career. She received her degree in entomology and worked for the UMass Extension as a vegetable crops specialist until her retirement. “I recognized the privilege I had in having a family who could help me own a home, which made my life easier and more stable. A lot was gifted to me,” she said, and she wanted to pass it on. 

Hazzard worked with ACLT to make the house affordable to a family making 70 to 80% of Area Median Income (AMI), with a selling price of $180,000, approximately half of the market value. The balance of the home’s market value was donated to ACLT, which issued a 99-year ground lease to the new owner. Because the sale was arranged through ACLT, there were no realtor fees involved. According to the ground lease, when the home is sold, it must be at a price also affordable to someone earning 80% of AMI or less. Although this limits the profit the resident will make on the sale, it keeps the house affordable in the future. 

Founded in 2014, ACLT now has seven families living in houses in Amherst. The houses came to ACLT in different ways. In addition to Hazzard’s gift, two were built through a partnership with Habitat for Humanity,  and two were donated by ACLT members. Two others were purchased through a first-time homeowners grant from Community Preservation Act funds, which covered the difference between market value and an affordable price—a gap that has grown larger as market values have soared in recent years. 

ACLT is part of an international land trust movement that began with Black farmers in the south and now promotes permanently affordable housing in both urban and rural areas. ACLT has made it a priority to stabilize Amherst neighborhoods for families. This goal is furthered by the generosity of homeowners like Hazzard who can afford to sacrifice some profit from selling their home to provide a home for a family and help preserve the character of their neighborhood. 

To find out more about ACLT, go to https://www.amherstcommunitylandtrust.org/  or email ACLT at Amherstcommunitylandtrust@gmail.com