Two years after the Lawrence City Commission created a board to improve affordable housing opportunities, officials are still struggling with how to pay for such projects.

Several ideas have emerged this summer, but even their backers say it may take time before the proposals become policy.

“I don’t think it’s going very far at this point,” said Kirk McClure, a member of the Housing Trust Fund Advisory Board.

Among the options:

• A $100 title transfer fee, charged whenever property changes hands in Lawrence. McClure likes the idea but doesn’t think it stands much chance while taxes are rising, schools are closing and city employees are going without raises.

“This would be a colossally bad time to come forward with a new tax for a new public venture,” McClure said.

But he said successful housing trust funds in other American cities have raised money by tapping hot housing markets in similar ways. McClure, a Kansas University associate professor, formerly worked for such a trust fund in Boston that obtained funding by imposing a charge on large new office developments.

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The fee would be low enough “nobody would notice it,” McClure said. “But it could make a difference in affordable housing.”

But Bill Yanek, representative of the Lawrence Builder-Realtor Coalition, said such fees would create a barrier to housing.

“While we certainly support initiatives to pay for affordable housing, increasing or levying a title transfer fee is something we would probably not support,” he said.

• A second option, raised by members of the East Lawrence Neighborhood Assn., would use a portion of property taxes generated by major new developments — such as the condominium project that will soon be built at Eighth and New Hampshire streets — to pay for affordable housing.

The Lawrence City Commission created the Housing Trust Fund Advisory Board in fall 2001 with $500,000 in funds left when the city overestimated the cost of building the Indoor Aquatic Center, 4706 Overland Drive.The board must decide how to spend the funds. It spent $66,000 of the accrued interest in 2002.

Mayor David Dunfield has publicly expressed interest in the idea.

“I’m not sure whether that’s even the appropriate mechanism to use,” he said Monday. “East Lawrence brought it up, and it sounded intriguing to me. I latched onto it as a starting point for discussion.”

Yanek said he had no opinion on that proposal.

• The third option is to make it easier for developers to build affordable housing — and it’s the option with the clearest chance of success.

New zoning codes under consideration would make it easier for developers to build “mixed use” developments that include commercial and residential construction. Such developments would reduce housing costs, officials said.

“We think it is a good thing, making it easier for builders and developers to build,” Yanek said. “If it becomes penalty driven, they’re just going to go elsewhere.”

Officials on all sides of the issues agreed that solutions were needed to improve the availability of affordable housing in Lawrence.

“We want to be involved in that discussion,” Yanek said. “In our opinion there’s not enough being done.”

Dunfield agreed.

“I think it’s good to be discussing all these options,” he said, “so we can get a coordinated policy.”