GREENFIELD — With 32 acres of land near Stone Farm Lane taken off the speculative market after a land trust purchased it in the summer, two organizations have plans to build affordable — if unconventional — housing.

Valley Community Land Trust, a regional nonprofit that purchases and leases land for conservation and affordable housing, bought the land for roughly $995,000 over the summer and leased portions to the Shelburne Falls-based architectural design firm Noble Home and the Valley Housing Co-op for development.

The co-op has leased 25 acres of the land and purchased the two duplexes attached to it. According to co-founder Saul Shanabrook, the organization, which currently rents to five tenants, aims to develop a housing community based on collaboration, self-organization and distributed authority. Shanabrook referred to the project as an “alternative” to traditional home ownership.

“We just wanted a structure to help support collective ownership of land that would allow people to engage at different commitment levels. It allows people who do have resources and means to contribute those resources and be compensated for them through lending, and allows folks who don’t have resources to still show up and be equal owners of the property,” Shanabrook said. “It was important to us that if we were to move in somewhere together or have a shared space, that it was a model that wasn’t excluding people who couldn’t afford home ownership. … That’s the nice thing about group equity cooperatives — they let people be equal members, even if they don’t have the resources to buy a home themselves.”

Valley Housing Co-op co-founder Sara Brown said the organization began meeting roughly five years ago with the intention of developing secure and sustainable housing in an area containing both rural and urban elements.

Brown noted that the purchase took the land off of the speculative market and would aim to preserve not only affordability, but given the landscape’s nature trails and proximity to the Connecticut River, conserve it.

“We wanted to find somewhere that was close to downtown Greenfield or downtown Turners Falls and we also wanted to be in nature as well as being urban,” Brown said. “We were trying to think about it in terms of ‘How can we meet our needs, but also think more systemically and collectively about housing security in the valley and affordable housing?’”

Noble Home owner Noah Grunberg, whose architectural design style centers around arcology — the fusion of architecture with ecology and nature — has leased 7 acres of the land, with plans to develop the area into 20 to 25 environmentally-friendly condominium units.

Should Noble Home complete its design and permitting in time, Grunberg said he hopes to begin work in the summer of 2025. He said the “nature village” style of the planned development would differentiate it from other popular New England architectural styles.

“In this case, it will use as much solar power as possible, integrating water systems with the natural features of the site for storm water, gray water systems, things like that. A lot of these systems need to be approved by the state, and some of them are rather alternative,” Grunberg said. “The concept is really to take this beautiful site that’s close to the Connecticut River, keeping it natural, but bringing in 20 to 25 units of housing where people can live in a village type of atmosphere within nature.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.