It is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.

— Thomas Paine in “Agrarian Justice,” 1795

Something special has been going on in North Amherst in recent years, and this month has provided several opportunities to celebrate the benefits that community organizing and a new approach to land ownership have brought to the neighborhood south of Pine Street and east of North Pleasant Street.

Last weekend saw the dedication and celebration of two new homes that have been built over the last year by Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity on a North Pleasant Street parcel owned by Amherst Community Land Trust (ACLT).

The creation of these permanently affordable homes was the product of a collaborative community effort, with volunteer labor to construct the homes and both public and private funding for the land acquisition and the construction. The dedication was a chance for the many people and organizations that helped with planning, building, and funding the homes to celebrate with the new homeowners.

Then on Tuesday, Habitat sold those homes to their new owners, who simultaneously entered into long-term ground leases with ACLT for the land on which their homes sit. That land was originally acquired by ACLT from North Amherst Community Farm (NACF), which had its own similar celebration earlier this month.

NACF was formed in 2006 to purchase what was then the Dziekanowski farm, one of the last working farms in North Amherst, to save it from development. NACF acquired the 30-plus acre farm and entered into a lease arrangement with Simple Gifts Farm, a commercial operation that raises organic crops and pasture-fed animals that are sold through community-supported agriculture and, more recently, a farm stand.

Although NACF took title to the farm in 2006, it only retired its mortgage in 2016. The campaign’s ultimate success required hard work from NACF volunteers, creative strategies such as the sale of the building lot to ACLT, and strong financial support from many community members along with town and state funding.

It was also due to the generosity of the extended family of Edwin Dziekanowski, the previous owner, whose bargain sale of the property effectively provided a 100 percent match of all other private donations.

So two weeks ago, NACF held a ceremony to dedicate the farm to the memory of Dziekanowski, and to acknowledge his family’s contribution toward preserving this farm. That dedication took place at Simple Gifts’ farm store, just north of the Habitat/ACLT homes. It was held in conjunction with the farm’s monthly Friday evening “front porch jam,” with CSA members and other neighbors gathered to share music and picnic on farm-produced hot dogs and salad.

The attractive new store, built last year, is part of the evolution of the farm business that is making organic produce available to more people and increasing the viability of the enterprise. It was possible because the innovative long-term lease between NACF and Simple Gifts allows the farmers to develop and own buildings on the land, and because leasing, rather than owning the land, frees up capital for investment in infrastructure.

A thriving farm benefits the whole community, and the ownership structure ensures that current farmers can easily pass it on to successors, so future generations can continue to buy good local food and perhaps picnic and hang with their neighbors.

Private ownership of the homes on ACLT land creates the same shared-ownership relationship, and it provides the same benefits. Removing the value of the land from the cost of acquisition makes the property more affordable for the farmer or the homeowner, while nonprofit ownership of the land also ensures that when the current user is ready to move on, another farmer or income-qualified homeowner, as the case may be, can purchase the current owner’s interest for an affordable price.

I began by writing of “a new approach to land ownership,” but it is more correct to describe these arrangements as a return to older ideas about land and property. The concept of land as a shared community resource, with rights of use limited or conditioned by community interests, has been widely held throughout history and across all continents. Native American leaders, such as Chief Seattle, and aboriginal and first peoples elsewhere, have most famously and eloquently questioned the privatization and commodification of land, but even in western cultures, thinkers such as Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln and Henry George have made the same argument.

Now in North Amherst, community ownership of land is delivering easily accessible, healthy food in the heart of a densely populated neighborhood, and affordable housing in a town where housing prices makes it hard for families to buy homes. This is an important legacy of which the community’s many contributors can be proud.

Jim Oldham, a Town Meeting member from Precinct 5, directs Equity Trust, an Amherst-based nonprofit working nationally for land reform and economic justice. He is also a member of the Amherst Community Land Trust.