Our mission is to improve quality of life for all by preserving, protecting, and strengthening the fabric of the community through education and the stewardship of land for purposes of affordable housing, conservation, agriculture, and economic development.
We respond to community-identified needs and build individual and collective power among historically marginalized people.
History
Athens Land Trust (ALT) was founded in 1994 by Skipper StipeMaas and Nancy Stangle. At the time, the two women were involved in the development of the Kenney Ridge community, a single-family neighborhood located on 139 acres on Tallassee Road in Athens-Clarke County.

In the course of that project, StipeMaas and Stangle discovered an apparent conflict between their two goals: to protect open spaces, and to keep the housing lots affordable. Believing that both problems required an integrated solution, ALT’s founders created one of the few organizations in the country that is both a conservation and community land trust.