For 35 years, MACLT has believed that everyone deserves the opportunity to have a stable place to call home. Over that time, MACLT has helped 134 families achieve affordable homeownership and supported the creation of 69 permanently affordable homes throughout the Madison area. Our work has helped strengthen neighborhoods and build lasting community connections. As we celebrate MACLT’s 35th anniversary, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at MACLT’s early history.
Like many stories, it starts with a land dispute. MACLT was first formed 35 years ago, but the story really picks up a little later in 1995 when the area where Troy Gardens now sits was an informal community garden owned by the state. At this time, inklings about selling the site for redevelopment began to reach community members and local farmers. A group spearheaded by the Northside Planning Committee (NPC) came together in an effort to prevent sale to a market-rate housing developer, knowing how valuable the site was as a community resource, especially for the Hmong and black garden-farmers who made up a significant portion of its users.
This is where MACLT comes in. Housing was needed on the north side of Madison and, as it became clear that some housing would be required to preserve the rest of the site for community use, the local organizing committee expressed a desire that any new housing remain under community control. MACLT entered the picture, proposing to develop low-density, mixed-income housing targeted primarily to lower-income households while simultaneously saving most of the land for use as a community farm. MACLT’s social justice mission appealed to a neighborhood community leery of for-profit developers. There were a handful of neighbors who voiced concern over bringing in new affordable housing. However, this was a minority opinion and the group encouraged MACLT to purchase the land (together with another non-profit). Unfortunately, another obstacle remained, the City of Madison.
The city had already targeted an adjacent parcel for development, and the state’s desire to sell the Troy acreage led to a desire to combine the plots. At this point, some players dropped out and new ones joined, while the community voted to restart the conversation over what to do with the land. A group including community members, gardeners, planners, MACLT, UW faculty members, architects, and sympathetic state legislators began working together on a sensible solution. Aided by some political maneuvering from state senator Fred Risser, the land was put under long-term lease with the understanding that it would eventually be purchased by MACLT.
So, after years of organizing, planning, and negotiations between community members and the city, a deal was eventually struck. In 1998, the city approved a development plan for Troy Gardens with 5 acres reserved for mixed-income housing, which are now MACLT homes. Without this multi-year organizing effort by the local community, with an assist from MACLT, the site would likely have been sold to the highest bidder and there would be no Troy Gardens. As MACLT approaches its 35th anniversary, we plan to continue being an important part of the Madison community helping more lower-income residents achieve homeownership.
We recommend the following videos for a more in-depth telling of this story and to meet some of the characters involved in creating Troy Gardens: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
