The State College Community Land Trust is celebrating 30 years of creating permanently affordable homes in the Centre Region.
Since its founding in 1996, the land trust has created 57 affordable homes and helped 85 families with 367 adults and children “to put down roots in this community,” Executive Director Colleen Ritter said at Tuesday’s meeting of the Centre County Board of Commissioners, which recognized the organization with a proclamation for its 30th anniversary.
Three decades in, SCCLT’s work is as important as ever, as market-rate home prices in State College have skyrocketed.
“When we were founded in 1996, the median home price in State College was in the low one hundred thousands,” Ritter said. “Today, we regularly see prices in the $400,000 range. Wages have not kept up with inflation for many working families like teachers, health care workers and service workers, and young professionals just starting out. Affordable housing and homeownership have simply moved out of reach. [That is] the reality of how of the housing crisis here and that’s why our work matters.”
SCCLT buys and rehabilitates modestly priced homes in the borough, which are then sold to applicants who meet federal income guidelines and are counseled on financial readiness. While the buyer acquires the home, the trust retains ownership of the land, cutting the homeowner’s costs by 30%.
The model ensures that the property remains affordable in perpetuity. The homeowner can sell in the house in the future, but only to another income-qualified buyer or back to the land trust.
“I know a lot of residents in State College Borough are very public-spirited, and when you mention you buy homes, you’re often able to get them at a little bit of a discount, because the families are are being generous and knowing that it’s going to help additional families, as you say, in perpetuity,” Board of Commissioners Chair Mark Higgins said.
In addition to buying, rehabbing and selling homes, SCCLT has branched out in other ways.
SCCLT completed its first new construction project in 2018, working with Penn State experts and community partners on GreenBuild, two net-zero energy homes comprising a duplex on University Drive.
Energy-efficiency that keeps utility costs low has been a key component of the land trust’s projects, including its foray into rental housing.
SCCLT and The HOME Foundation collaborated on the acquisition and renovation of eight townhomes on Old Boalsburg Road that have been rented as affordable units since their completion in 2023. The HOME Foundation owns the townhomes and SCCLT owns the land, again ensuring they remain affordable in perptuity.
The organizations extended that project to two affordable, energy-efficient rental apartments on an adjoining property that opened in 2025, an effort to chip away at the shortage of accessible and affordable one-bedroom units in the borough.
Commissioner Amber Concepcion said that the land trust’s work over the decades has been “one of the really critical components of a larger ecosystem and trying to help people who may otherwise have some housing insecurity, or for whom the State College area would be completely out of reach.”
“This really, is I think a pretty unique and creative solution to make sure that we have at least some stock of homes that are that are permanently affordable and that they help people who are part of part of our local workforce,” Concepcion added. “We need people to be able to live proximate to their employment.”
SCCLT will celebrate its 30th year with an opening reception for the “Home Is Where the Art Is” exhibition at 6 p.m. on April 3 at 3 Dots Downtown. The community art installation celebrating home, neighborhood and connection will then be on display for one month.
“We are proud of what we’ve accomplished over the last 30 years, and we are committed to continuing the work, ensuring that Centre County remains a place where working families can live, work and thrive,” Ritter said.
