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Family Economic Mobility | School Readiness | Youth Success

How might we preserve urban land in Denver for affordable housing and community resource needs, even as Denver and its economy continue to grow?

Similar to the way that a land trust preserves open space for future generations, Denver needed an urban land bank that could acquire, develop and preserve community real estate assets in urban areas to meet a variety of community needs, including affordable housing and community resources like quality schools, community centers and office space for nonprofits.

For example, when the parent company of the Tennyson Center for Children filed for bankruptcy in 2004, it became an open target for real estate developers who saw more value in its iconic campus than its century-long history serving Colorado’s most abused and neglected children.

Such redevelopment would not have been atypical in Tennyson’s North Denver neighborhood. From 2000 to 2016, home values in North Denver skyrocketed from an average of $100,000 to $450,000. Real estate developers couldn’t help but take advantage of the rising rates.

Growing, Building & Changing What’s Possible

Grow | Build | Change

Sam Gary saw value in preserving the natural world as well as the built world. He realized his commitment to open space through the creation of Colorado Open Lands, a land trust that exists to to protect Colorado’s land and water resources, as well as his work to redevelop the site of the old Stapleton Airport into a sustainable urban community that creates economic opportunity, promotes environmental sustainability and values social equity.

Sam also thought to use his oil business, Gary Williams Energy Corp., to launch Urban Land Conservancy (ULC) in 2003, with the express goal of preserving land in Metro Denver to create long-term community benefits — particularly for underserved kids and families. ULC first acquired the Tennyson Center for Children’s campus, a property purchased in 2005 that it sold back to the organization six years later.

ULC quickly realized, however, that creating affordable space alone was not enough. That’s why it set about to work with a host of partners to focus on the development of permanently affordable space through a community land trust model. ULC uses its unique community land trust to ensure properties are used for community benefit regardless of circumstance by holding them in a 99-year land lease.

The community benefits are twofold:

• First, any nonprofit, school or mission-minded organization that purchases a building saves money by excluding the land under the building from its purchase.
• Second, if that buyer ever chooses to leave or close its doors, ULC can make sure the next tenant or buyer is serving a community use as well. 

ULC’s community land trust also utilizes community input as its north star, working to engage neighborhood partners to guide the important details of each development and directing critical resources toward stated quality of life needs. Those needs often include affordable housing, transportation, nonprofit services, childcare, education, job training and health care.

ULC uses innovative funding approaches to foster equitable growth throughout Metro Denver. This includes the creation of the Metro Denver Impact Facility, a revolving source of patient, low-cost capital that helps ULC acquire and preserve affordable housing and other community-serving properties. ULC also worked with the City and County of Denver and others to establish the country’s first affordable housing Transit Oriented Development Fund, which has supported the creation and preservation of more than 2,000 affordable homes through strategic property acquisition in current and future transit corridors.

The Team

Dave Younggren

Founding Director

By the end of 2020, Urban Land Conservancy has acquired and preserved 34 properties for community-focused development. Additionally, we have invested over $140 million in community real estate and leveraged more than $1 billion in affordable housing, community resources and nonprofit facility development.

Urban Land Conservancy
2020 Annual Report