Community Land Trust

A Community Land Trust is a democratic, multi-stakeholder organization that owns land for the permanent benefit of the community and sell and rent homes with various resale restrictions in order to maintain long-term affordability, breaking the cycle of poverty and emphasising the participatory aspect. CLTs marry private ownership of buildings with community stewardship of the land, retaining income from its use for the general welfare of all in the region.The possession and use of the land are separated. Community land trusts (CLTs) were designed to hold working lands — the lands needed for village life and its activities, in the hands of individuals oor cooperatives. It has spread also in cities, where different housing issues intersect: space and urban planning; policies that favour private property; real estate speculation; gentrification and displacements; the need for social housing, and the implementation of alternative mechanisms, as shared housing.etc.

Main principles :

• community permanent ownership of land (not a private property) : land can not be sold, lso that land is “taken out” of the market, thus avoiding speculation.
• the trust manages the land for the benefit of the community  and is responsible towards its members ;
• sustainable access to affordable housing built on the land, for low income families ;
• land is separated from the buildings, privately owned ;
• community development based on the link with the local area and the local authorities through a shared governance (transparency and accountability) with in general, a third composed by the residents of the CLT, a third by people of the area, a third by public organizations, banks, etc related to the project.

How does it work ?

The CLT buys land (public and private donations) in perpetuity, it puts the combined plots at the disposal of the members of the community, through long term leases (often 99 years) and manages them in the interest of the people who are residing there. For this purpose, the CLT may build or have built dwellings that it sells to the renters of the land,with a price well below market value, by subtracting the land taxes. The lessee is a tenant of the land, but the owner of the property. When the building is resold,the lease of every parcel includes a preemption right that gives the CLT the priority to buy the property when an owner leaves the CLT; any increase in value that the lessee realizes is subject to anti-speculation clauses, thus guaranteeing the accessibility of the housing from one generation of owners to the next. It has proved to be a robust affordable housing policy solution.

= Equivalent concepts

Affordable housing land trust, Neighborhood Land Trust. In French, "fiducie foncière communautaire", "communs fonciers", "foncier solidaire".

History of the concept

In the second half of the XIX century, there was a theorization by several thinkers on the socialization of land. This and customary tenures in Africa and other parts of the world (India,the notion of commons in different countries) inspired Bob Swann (a Peace activist and the New Economics Institute founder) and Civil Rights activist, Slater King, who modeled the first “Community Land Trust (CLT)” in 1967 in Albany, Georgia to provide Black farmers secure access to land in a segregated South.  For them, land and other natural resources are a given — what we know now as a « common ».  It is not labour itself that represents economic value. Rather it is the product of labour transforming nature that creates the new value. When land and minerals can be bought by the highest bidder an imbalance occurs in the economic, multiplying inequalities, poverty and environmental degradation.

Instead, Swann and King imagined a network of regional nonprofit, quasi-public trusts that hold land and lease it to individuals and cooperatives for use for housing, farming, forestry, manufacturing, shops, and offices on long term leases. The lessees would own the buildings and other improvements on the land, but the land would remain a community asset with access by social contract rather than through the market. In the 80’s, the number of CLT expandend in the US. The model was recognised and a definition was stated by federal law in 1992. They developed also in other countries as the UK, Canada, Kenya, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Bolivia, etc.

Public policies associated with this issue

The Housing and Community Development Act incorporates, at federal level, the definition of CLTs in the United States in 1992. The Land Reform Act (2003) grants the right of pre-emption to CLTs in Scotland. This law constitutes the first recognition of the CLT mechanism. For England and Wales, the Housing & Regeneration Act 2008 has legally recognised CLT and defined it as a corporate body whose main goal is to acquire and manage land for the benefit of the local community. It was introduced in French Law through the name: "organisme de foncier solidaire" (article 184 of the ALUR law/24 March 2014), improved later an ordonnance in July 2016: with the "bail reel solidaire"(BRS), Kenya’s Community Land Act, 2016, as the framework through which customary holdings are to be identified and registered.

Community Land Trust around the world

Belgium

The Community Land Trust Bruxelles was created in 2012 as an initiative of residents, activists and neighbourhood organisations, after the experiences of Community Land Trusts in the United States. The aim was from the beginning to give ownership to low-income families and to fight the housing crisis in the city. The CLT retains the ownership of land while using a governance structure involving future residents and organisations present in its neighbourhoods, There is a legal recognition by the regional government and support with grants. Beyond living together, the issue is also a political issue, that of the values of solidarity and questioning of private property and non-speculation of real estate, but also self-management, respect for the environment, etc. Another vision of urbanization, community, a form of emancipation through a housing tool? (from the Shared housing page)

Main networks working on this issue

• United States, the Schumacher Center’s community land trust directory and the National Community Land Trust Network
• Belgium, L’association bruxelloise CLTB - Community Land Trust Bruxelles
• The Community Land Trust network UK

Links

With socioeco.org

Matching Socioeco.org thematic keyword

With Ripess NL articles or position papers

You will find an article on the Community Land Trust in Brussels, Belgium, in the Ripess Newsletter of May 2022.