A project to create long-term affordable housing in Lawrence was put on a fast track by city commissioners in November but has been slowed dramatically by a city advisory board.

The city’s Housing Trust Fund Board on Wednesday delayed a decision on a plan to provide city funding for the Lawrence Community Land Trust, an offshoot of the city’s Tenants to Homeowners program that would provide new home ownership opportunities for low- to moderate-income residents.

In late November, city commissioners endorsed the idea of using a majority of the $560,000 in the city’s Housing Trust Fund to help pay for land purchases for the program. City commissioners were hoping the advisory board would share their enthusiasm in the concept and vote to approve use of the funds.

But at Wednesday’s meeting the only issue board members were able to agree on was to go back to city commissioners and ask for a clearer definition of what the goal of the trust fund should be.

“The land trust in and of itself is an excellent program, but we don’t know if it is the optimum program for this money,” said Barbara Carswell, chairwoman of the board.

The land trust would use a concept that creates a unique home ownership arrangement designed to reduce significantly the amount of money that low- to moderate-income residents are required to borrow from a lender. Unlike traditional home ownership, people who participate in a land trust own only the house and structures that are on the land. The trust, usually a nonprofit organization, owns the actual land.

In exchange for receiving assistance from the land trust, home owners would sign a legal document limiting how much they could turn around and sell the home for when they move. Currently, the Lawrence Community Land Trust is seeking to limit the resale price to 25 percent of how much the house, not including the land, has appreciated from the time the homeowners bought the property.

The program has been touted as a way to maintain affordable housing stock in the community for the long term. But some trust fund board members question whether the program is right for Lawrence.

Kirk McClure, a board member and associate professor in urban planning at Kansas University, said the affordable housing problem in Lawrence was not severe enough to warrant a program that denied low- to moderate-income homeowners the opportunity to sell their homes for their full value.

“The real social value of home ownership is the net worth it creates for people,” he said.

Rebecca Buford, associate director of Lawrence’s Tenants to Homeowners, said she was frustrated by the board’s delay.

“As a practitioner, we would like to see this move forward because we see people who are in need on a daily basis,” she said.

Despite the trust fund board’s indecision, some city commissioners are still excited about the land trust project.

“I thought we gave it a pretty enthusiastic approval,” said City Commissioner Boog Highberger. “I’m not sure I understand their confusion.”

The trust fund board at its meeting did not get to a proposal that would use $30,000 of the trust fund money to start a program that would provide an incentive for landlords to rent to homeless individuals.