More opportunities for home ownership are coming downtown. Affordable condos are planned for Denver’s historic Five Points neighborhood. The upcoming project at 29th and Welton Street will transform an RTD parking lot into much-needed housing.
The new development is named after Hattie McDaniel, the first African American woman to win an Oscar, and will have 62 affordable units. It’s built in partnership with the city, RTD, Shanahan Development and Elevation Community Land Trust.
Stefka Fanchi, President and CEO of Elevation Community Land Trust, says their goal is to provide permanently affordable homeownership opportunities. Another development added more than 40 affordable condos to Five Points this year.
“We utilize the community land trust model,” Fanchi said. “This model emerged from the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960s when a group of sharecroppers in the rural South, after being displaced for registering to vote, came together to purchase land communally. They built homes on this land but did not own the land itself. This model allowed them to secure housing while keeping the land under communal ownership.”