
Walla Walla’s first community land trust gets big boost
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Last week, Common Roots Housing Trust announced it was receiving $770,000 in a grant from Washington’s Department of Commerce.
The organization is a community land trust, or CLT. While there are dozens of CLTs in the state of Washington, Common Roots is Walla Walla’s first — and this is its first project.
With the money, Common Roots will buy a parcel of land on Fern Avenue, in the southeastern part of the city. It will build seven 2- and 3-bedroom houses on that land. The houses will be around 1,000 square feet, using designs from Hayden Homes: the Argent and the Austin.

“The Austin,” a 3-bed, 2-bath home that will be available through Walla Walla’s first community land trust. (Credit: Hayden Homes)
Once construction is complete, Common Roots will sell the houses — but not the land — to families earning less than 80% of the area’s median income. That’s around $72,000 for a family of four.
Retaining ownership of the land will enable the nonprofit to keep the home prices low: around $200,000. Walla Walla’s median sale price was more than double that in December, according to Redfin.
Mortgages will likely be between $800 and $1,400, said Kathryn Witherington, the executive director of Common Roots. Residents will also pay a $75 monthly fee to lease the land. But they won’t need to worry about sudden price hikes: The land leases last 99 years.

Common Roots will retain ownership of the Fern Avenue parcel, but will sell the homes to low- and middle-income homebuyers. (Credit: Common Roots)
The organization’s goal, Witherington said, is to “ get those homes into the hands of first-time homeowners, our marginalized communities, those who are not able to enter the traditional market in other ways.”
To ensure the Fern Avenue homes remain affordable in the future, the owners will be limited in the amount of equity they can build: a set rate of 1.5% annually. That also applies to their heirs, if they choose to pass the houses onto them.
“The entire model of community land trusts in America is focused on generational wealth building,” Witherington said. “Like any other home, it is inheritable. It is sellable. You can treat it like any other place you would try to buy. The key difference is the limited equity that you can get on resale. ”

The Fern Avenue lot, where Walla Walla’s first CLT homes will be built, is currently vacant. (Credit: Susan Shain / NWPB)
Though the nonprofit is still determining how homebuyers will be selected, Witherington anticipates using some sort of lottery system.
Walla Walla’s push for a community land trust started in 2018, when a local nonprofit was gathering information for an affordable housing report. After years of research and fundraising, Common Roots gained its nonprofit status in 2023.
The grant it received last week was part of an almost $18 million affordable housing outlay from the state’s Department of Commerce. The money will cover about a third of the Fern Avenue project’s estimated $2.5 million cost. Witherington said the rest of the funding will likely come from state construction loans and grants, as well as private subsidies.
“We feel very confident that we’ll be able to start working on these homes within the next six months,” Witherington said. She hopes families will be moving in by the end of 2026.