The room where a ground lease gets signed is rarely dramatic. It is usually a conference room in a nonprofit office, a folding table with a stack of exhibits, a notary stamp, and a homeowner who has already read the document twice and still has questions. On the table is a form: the Pima County Community Land Trust Ground Lease, edited May 19, 2021. It is the kind of document that decides, quietly and in advance, what can happen to a house over the next century.
The lease does something that sounds contradictory until you read it closely. It takes a house off the speculative market without taking it away from the family that lives in it. The mechanism is not a promise or a program slogan. It is a set of clauses that separate the land from the house, fix a term, attach conditions to renewal, and constrain the resale price. Each clause does different work. Read alone, any one of them can mislead you.
The split: land owned by the trust, house owned by the homeowner
The first thing to understand is that the homeowner does not own the land. The community land trust does. The homeowner owns the house and the improvements on it. The lease states this directly in Article 7.1:
7.1 HOMEOWNER OWNS THE HOUSE AND ALL OTHER IMPROVEMENTS ON THE LEASED LAND
The definitions section makes the same distinction from the other direction. “Leased Land” is “the parcel of land, described in Exhibit: LEASED LAND, which is leased to the Homeowner.” “Home” is “the residential structure and other permanent improvements located on the Leased Land and owned by the Homeowner.”
This split is the foundation of everything else. Because the trust owns the land, it can attach conditions to the lease that would be difficult or impossible to attach to a fee-simple sale. Because the homeowner owns the house, the family has an asset, a mortgage, and something to pass on. The arrangement is not renting. It is not conventional ownership either. It is a third thing, and the lease is where that third thing is defined.
Fannie Mae describes the same structure in its Community Land Trust Frequently Asked Questions: community land trusts “preserve long-term affordable housing by purchasing homes in their communities, then selling the homes to income-eligible buyers while retaining ownership of the land.” The homeowner leases the land through a long-term ground lease with affordable monthly ground rents.
The term: 99 years, and then another 99
The headline number is the term. Article 3.1 states it plainly:
3.1 TERM OF LEASE IS 99 YEARS: This Lease shall remain in effect for 99 years
Article 3.2 adds the renewal:
3.2 HOMEOWNER CAN RENEW LEASE FOR ANOTHER 99 YEARS: Homeowner may renew this Lease for one additional period of 99 years.
Ninety-nine years is long enough to cover a generation and then some. It is also a common figure in community land trust practice. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development notes on its Community Land Trust Initiatives page that ground leases between CLTs and the owners of affordable buildings on their land “typically last for 99 years, with automatic renewal.” The Pima County lease is not an outlier. It is an example of a standard form.
But the term alone does not take a house off the market. A long lease with no resale restriction is just a long lease. What matters is what the lease says about price and transfer.
What “off the market” actually means
Article 10 is where the lease does its most consequential work. It opens with a statement of intent:
10.1 INTENT OF THIS ARTICLE IS TO PRESERVE AFFORDABILITY
Then it constrains who can buy the home:
10.2 HOMEOWNER MAY TRANSFER HOME ONLY TO CLT OR QUALIFIED PERSONS
And it constrains the price:
10.9 PURCHASE OPTION PRICE EQUALS LESSER OF APPRAISED VALUE OR FORMULA PRICE
That last clause is the one that does the actual work of keeping the house affordable. The homeowner cannot sell to the highest bidder. The trust has an option to purchase, and the maximum price the homeowner can receive is the lower of two numbers: what an appraiser says the home is worth, or what the lease’s formula says it is worth. The formula is defined elsewhere in Article 10, and the lease does not reproduce the full calculation in the table of contents. But the structure is clear. The resale price is capped by a formula, not set by the market.
This is what “off the market” means in practice. The house can still be sold. It can still change hands. But it cannot be sold at whatever price a buyer is willing to pay. The lease constrains the transaction, which is narrower than removing the house from commerce entirely. The distinction matters because it is the difference between a document that shapes a market and a document that abolishes one.
The family piece: heirs and the limits of the clause
The phrase “without taking it from the family” needs the same kind of care. The lease does address inheritance. Article 10.3 states:
10.3 THE HOME MAY BE TRANSFERRED TO CERTAIN HEIRS OF HOMEOWNER
That is a real provision. It means the lease contemplates that the home may pass to family members rather than being sold on the open market. But the clause says “certain heirs,” not “any heir.” The lease does not guarantee that every family member will qualify or that every transfer will be approved. It creates a pathway, subject to conditions that the full text of Article 10.3 would specify. The document supports continued family occupancy on its stated terms. It does not promise that every family will be able to use those terms.
This is the honest reading. The lease is a tool, not a guarantee. It gives a family a structure for keeping the house, but the structure has conditions. A reader who wants to understand what the lease actually offers should read Article 10.3 in full, along with any heir-qualification criteria the trust applies.
The obligations that come with the lease
The lease is not only a set of protections. It is also a set of obligations. Article 4.4 requires the homeowner to occupy the home for at least eleven months each year:
4.4 HOMEOWNER MUST OCCUPY THE HOME FOR AT LEAST 11 MONTHS EACH YEAR
Article 5 establishes a lease fee, paid monthly to the trust for the use of the land. The fee is not the same as rent, because the homeowner owns the house and holds equity in it. But it is a real cost, and the lease allows the trust to adjust it under stated conditions.
These obligations are part of the arrangement. They are the price of the protections in Article 10. A reader who wants to understand the lease as a whole should read the obligations and the protections together, because they are designed as a system.
Reading the lease as a system
The mistake a reader can make is to treat any one clause as the whole story. The 99-year term is often quoted as the headline feature, but the term alone does not keep a house affordable. The resale formula is often described as the key mechanism, but a formula without a long term is just a price cap that expires. The heir-transfer clause is often cited as the family provision, but it operates within the constraints of Article 10 as a whole.
The clauses do different work, and they only work together. The term gives the arrangement time to matter across a generation. The renewal conditions determine whether the arrangement continues past the first term. The resale formula constrains the price at the point of transfer. The heir clause creates a pathway for family continuity. Read one without the others and you will misunderstand what the document does.
A transferable practice
When you read any shared-equity or community land trust document, read four things together: the term, the renewal conditions, the resale formula, and the heir-transfer clause. Ask what each one does, and ask what happens if one is missing.
A long term without a resale formula is just a long lease. A resale formula without a term is just a price cap that expires. An heir clause without a resale formula may not keep the home affordable for the next family. A resale formula without an heir clause may keep the home affordable but not keep it in the family. The document is a system, and the system is what you are reading.
The Pima County lease is one example of that system. It is not the only one, and it is not a guarantee of any particular outcome. But it is a document that shows how a house can be taken off the speculative market without being taken from the family that lives in it. The mechanism is not magic. It is a set of clauses, read together, that decide in advance what can happen to a house over the next century.
FAQ
Does the 99-year term mean the family can stay for 99 years?
The lease states that it remains in effect for 99 years and that the homeowner may renew for one additional 99-year period, subject to conditions stated in Article 3.2. The term is long, but it is not unconditional. The renewal clause specifies notice requirements and a no-default condition.
Can the homeowner sell the house to anyone?
No. Article 10.2 states that the homeowner may transfer the home only to the CLT or to qualified persons. Article 10.9 states that the purchase option price equals the lesser of appraised value or the formula price. The lease constrains both who can buy and at what price.
Can the house pass to the homeowner’s children?
Article 10.3 states that the home may be transferred to certain heirs of the homeowner. The clause creates a pathway, but it says “certain heirs,” not “any heir.” The full text of Article 10.3 and any heir-qualification criteria would specify the conditions.
Is the homeowner renting?
No. The homeowner owns the house and the improvements on it, as stated in Article 7.1. The CLT owns the land and leases it to the homeowner. The homeowner pays a lease fee for the land, but holds equity in the house.
Is this arrangement unique to Pima County?
No. The 99-year ground lease is a common form in community land trust practice. The New York City HPD page notes that ground leases between CLTs and building owners “typically last for 99 years, with automatic renewal.” The Pima County lease is an example of a standard structure, not a unique one.