Establishing a Community Land Trust

Anika Singh Lemar is a clinical professor of law at Yale Law School where she teaches clinics that represent affordable housing developers, tenants, homeowners, small businesses, community development financial institutions, fair housing advocates, and cooperatives. Singh Lemar writes about land use, zoning, and housing. She served two terms as editor-in-chief of the American Bar Association’s Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law and has been a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institute’s Metropolitan Policy Project. She is currently a member of the board of New Haven Bank and president of the Connecticut Bar Foundation.

Prior to joining the Law School faculty, Singh Lemar practiced real estate law at a Connecticut law firm. She began her career as a law clerk for the Hon. Janet C. Hall of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut and, later, as a fellow and staff attorney at the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center (since renamed TakeRootJustice) in New York.

Singh Lemar received her B.A., cum laude, from Yale University and her J.D., cum laude, from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar, a Dean’s Scholar, and a Robert McKay Scholar. While in law school, she received the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and co-founded Next City.

Brenda Torpy, Lead Consultant, Champlain Housing Trust

Brenda served as Burlington’s Director of Housing for then Mayor Bernie Sanders and Vermont Housing Finance Agency’s Program and Policy Development Director and has, over her 45 years’ experience in the field that included rural community organizing and development, advanced the community land trust model at local, national and international levels. She established and led CHT, the largest US CLT for 29 years, was chair of the National CLT Network, a founding Board Member and Officer of its successor, Grounded Solutions Network and since 2005, has helped to export the model to England, Canada, Belgium and France through direct TA and trainings. Under her leadership CHT received the 2008 UN World Habitat Award. Brenda was a Ford Foundation Leader for a Changing World in 2001, is the Co-President of the International Center for CLTs, and past member of the Boston Home Loan and Federal Reserve Banks’ Advisory Committees, and the Vermont Governor’s Housing Council.  Since 2021, Brenda is TA\ CHT’s Lead Consultant working with cities and groups on CLT development throughout the US and abroad.  

Jason Webb, Community and Technical Assistance Principle, Grounded Solutions Network

Jason has close to 40 years of experience in community organizing and revitalization. He was instrumental in the revitalization of a community in Roxbury Massachusetts called “Dudley Street,” as highlighted in the awarding winning documentaries Holding Ground, Gaining Ground, and the book called Streets of Hope. At Grounded Solutions, his primary area of work is to support nonprofit organizations and public agencies to explore, adopt and implement housing policies and programs with lasting affordability that advance racial equity and inclusion. Jason has led technical assistance engagements in over 50 communities such as Louisville, KY; Memphis, TN; Baltimore, MD; Durham, NC; and New Orleans, LA. He serves as the primary point of contact for Fee for Service engagements by providing the subject matter expertise.