Community Land Trusts Research Articles

The Liberal Case for Community Land Trusts

Abstract This paper argues that community land trusts (CLTs) can be part of a liberal housing policy from both an economic and a legal point of view. In this, I depart from the defense of community land trusts based on the so-called ‘decommodification’ of housing. First, from an economic point of view, CLTs are a comparatively better option than other traditional policies, such as rent control, once the political complexity of housing policies is considered. Second, fostering autonomy and the capacity for self-authorship requires that individuals be able to choose from a diverse set of valuable institutional designs; CLTs correspond to that ideal and bring a unique nuance to the existing options within common-interest communities. Additionally, I look at the somewhat recent legal innovations that brought CLTs to Canada and continental Europe to show that the institutional flexibility of CLTs allows them to support different visions of self-realization through ownership.

“All roads lead to Rome?” Performance evaluation across different types of community land trusts based on a large-scale survey

ABSTRACT Community land trusts (CLTs) seek to keep homes and other urban spaces permanently affordable and community controlled. As their number across the United States has increased, different iterations of the CLT model seem to have proliferated in practice, stoking scholarly debate as to their varying outcomes and benefits. There has, however, been little attempt to empirically measure the relationship between this institutional diversity and outcomes. Applying institutional theory to a national CLT dataset, we identify five main organizational sub-types of CLT: traditional CLTs, start-up CLTs, government-housed CLTs, nonprofits with a CLT/shared equity (SE) program, and adapted CLTs. Statistical tests confirm a high degree of similarity in operational scope, organizational capacity, and performance outcomes across the most prominent sub-types. The limited statistical differences which can be identified are consistent with known CLT and urban institutional development processes. Further studies might seek to determine how consequential such limited differences may be.

Reshaping essential public spaces and services: towards socio-spatial justice in a post-pandemic era

In our last viewpoint article, we illustrated the hidden stories of immigrant suburbs during the COVID-19 pandemic and challenges facing racialised communities. This article delves deeper into intensified social and spatial inequalities by interrogating: what are the ‘essential’ public spaces, places and services that must remain accessible to benefit the settlement, well-being and inclusion of marginalised, racialised, immigrant populations? What engagement approaches effectively include racialised minority groups’ voices in decisions about the future of public space and (sub)urban systems? We emphasise the utility of a socio-spatial justice framework in reimagining and reconfiguring essential public spaces and associated services in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using examples from the Canadian context (i.e. community land trusts, cultural district plans, cultural festivals and food systems), we unpack pillars of distributional, procedural and recognitional justice to interrogate the status quo and illuminate pathways to more inclusive, fair and accessible communities. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Research, market, and policy implications of permanently affordable housing: lessons from Australian discussions about community land trusts

As with many Anglophone nations, Australia displays a dualistic housing system dominated by private ownership and private rental, both of which demonstrate an ongoing and intensifying lack of affordability. Despite extensive public subsidisation, rates of ownership have dropped in recent years while the proportion of renters is increasing. Alongside calls for private rental reforms to make this more appropriate as a form of long-term tenure, there is growing interest in intermediate tenure forms to allow easier access to ownership, ease the pressure on the country’s marginalised social housing, and provide a greater range of options. Due to their small scale and relative newness in Australia, intermediate tenures such as shared equity, community land trusts, and housing co-operatives remain under-researched and unfamiliar, with previous research showing limited interest in shared equity products amongst potential buyers. This paper presents data from more recent focus groups amongst would-be buyers, showing latent market interest in resale-restricted products, with policy and market implications of both national and international relevance. The work also highlights a role for research in fostering awareness and understanding of such models.

Affordable Housing Through Community Land Trusts (CLTs): Examining Factors Associated with the Number of Units in CLTs

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are a model of housing that helps to ensure affordability and community stability for low-income households. However, there is a dearth of studies that have examined CLTs on a national scale and what factors are associated with the number of units. This study examined 202 CLTs in the U.S., and we assessed whether CLT characteristics, community socioeconomic factors, and the regulatory and political landscape are associated with the number of units. We found that years of operating the CLT, CLTs that also have rental properties, and CLTs that are publicly-owned or operated are positively associated with more units. Our findings highlight the importance of municipalities supporting CLTs and future research that can better understand CLT contexts and the development of units.

Regulatory islands: a case study in tactical community zoning

Despite the clear environmental and economic benefits of denser forms of housing, the ability to construct such housing remains elusive. Restrictive zoning policies and local coalitions of Not in My Backyard activists make the construction of dense housing within established neighbourhoods a near impossibility in jurisdictions throughout the United States. The purpose of this article is to illustrate how architects might leverage community coalition building and the critical interpretation or ‘hacking’ of local zoning ordinances to realise dense, infill housing projects even within otherwise highly conservative policy environments. Using Pier Vittorio Aureli’s history of settlement form and property rights as an initial contextual framework, the article outlines how infill housing might adopt an alternate view of housing development, subverting the primacy typically assigned to individual private property rights and financial speculation. Sited on an infill lot within one of Lincoln, Nebraska’s older neighbourhoods, the project relies on a non-normative, strategic implementation of a Community Unit Plan zoning mechanism to enlist neighbourhood support and establish higher levels of allowable density. This, in combination with the implementation of a Community Land Trust, allows the project to introduce a greater quantity and diversity of housing types that offer possibilities for home ownership, affordable rental opportunities and even temporary or supportive housing in areas historically dedicated solely to single-family housing models. Ultimately, the significance of the project rests not in its formal novelty but in its demonstration of an immediate and attainable means through which denser forms of housing might be realised.

“I don't think anybody’s ever been to scale:” the imperative for growth and the implications of scale for Community Land Trusts in Minnesota, USA

ABSTRACT This paper examines the scalar logics of Community Land Trusts, nonprofits that work to facilitate affordable housing and promote community control of local development. Like many nonprofits, CLTs face a tension between assumed efficiencies that come with larger size on one hand, and the assumed responsiveness to community stakeholders that comes with smaller size on the other. Through an examination of CLTs in Minnesota, USA that included over 100 interviews with CLT stakeholders, we explore how CLTs understand and operationalize scale as they attempt to grow. Various CLT stakeholders adopt distinct (sometimes implicit) functional scalar logics for CLTs. This leads to growth strategies which are articulated as scalar but which are not clear about which registers of scale will be altered. In particular, we identify four key registers of scale for CLTs: organizational, jurisdictional, service area, and community identity. These do not always shift in lock-step; but because CLTs are trusts that own portfolio properties in perpetuity, we suggest that changes in the relationships between these registers pose larger risks for CLTs than for many other kinds of nonprofit service organizations.

Communities as Global Actors in Counterhegemonic Policy Mobilities: Lessons from the Community Land Trust Movement

Communities as Global Actors in Counterhegemonic Policy Mobilities: Lessons from the Community Land Trust Movement

Balancing Urban Development: Literature on the Nexus Between Affordable Housing and Urban Sprawl

The complex relationship between affordable housing and urban sprawl has major implications for cities all over the world. While urban sprawl offers lower housing costs and increased space as benefits, it also does present serious environmental, social, and economic issues. Undoubtedly, the rising cost of housing in the urban centers has forced the no income and the low-income populations to the periphery and thus increasing economic inequality and displacement. The growing urban sprawl has given rise to environmental degradation, social isolation, and economic inefficiency, which is further intensifying the displacement of low-income individuals and their families. This again is the remote cause of overcrowding as it restrains upward economic mobility. The aim of this research is to examine the complex relationship that exists between affordable housing and urban sprawl, and to propose ways to balance these dynamics. Key objectives include analyzing the adverse impacts of urban sprawl on the environment, societal fabric, and economic productivity; investigating the driving forces behind rising housing costs and their repercussions on low-income households; evaluating existing policies and strategies addressing affordable housing and urban sprawl; and proposing innovative solutions for sustainable urban development with equitable access to affordable housing. With the use of a literature review methodology, this study offers a comprehensive strategy. Stronger land use planning and zoning, improved public transportation and active transportation infrastructure, the expansion, building and preservation of more affordable housing, the promotion of social justice and community involvement and the use of technology and data-driven approaches are policy recommendations. The adoption of micro-units and tiny homes, co-housing and shared living arrangements, adaptive reuse and mixed-use development, community land trusts and housing cooperatives are some of the innovative recommendations. By striking a balance between affordable housing and sustainable urban development, these strategies hope to foster inclusive and thriving cities. Keywords: Urban sprawl, Affordable housing, Sustainable urban development, Low-Income Households, Land-Use Policy, Compact city planning, Community engagement

Can community land trust models work in Peru? Researching community-based land tenure models for affordable housing

Purpose In pursuit of affordable housing, the Sustainable Urban Development Act of 2021 contains regulations for community land trusts (CLTs) in Peru. This study aims to assess whether the CLT model can be an effective tool for low-income housing generation in the Peruvian context. Design/methodology/approach This study draws upon information collected from qualitative research and official statistical data to identify the main problems in the Peruvian housing sector. The authors gathered evidence from specialised literature to examine the benefits and drawbacks of CLT implementation and functionality as experienced in the USA, England and Canada in contrast to Puerto Rico and Brazil. To assess the potential effectiveness of the CLT model in Peru, the results from the examination of both groups of countries are analysed and contrasted with the evidence from the Peruvian experience. Findings Through micro-scale interventions in places with a consolidated sense of community, the CLT model can be an effective tool for affordable housing generation. However, no robust evidence suggests that the CLT model could be an effective tool for large-scale intervention in cities with disorganised and accelerated growth. Moreover, the level of housing affordability defined by the CLT model may be insufficient for people from the lowest-income percentiles. Originality/value Peruvian CLT adaptation will require a shift in individual property mind-sets. Furthermore, the model should be enhanced by governmental support through public subsidies and backed by mortgage loans and land grant programmes.

Moving upstream: healthcare partnerships addressing social determinants of health through community wealth building

BackgroundHealthcare-based interventions addressing social needs such as food and housing generally fail to impact the upstream wealth and power inequities underlying those needs. However, a small number of US healthcare organizations have begun addressing these upstream inequities by partnering with community wealth building initiatives. These initiatives include community land trusts, resident-owned communities, and worker cooperatives, which provide local residents ownership and control over their housing and workplaces. While these partnerships represent a novel, upstream approach to the social determinants of health, no research has yet evaluated them.MethodsTo assess the current state and key aspects of healthcare-community wealth building partnerships, we conducted a multiple case study analysis using semi-structured interviews with thirty-eight key informants across ten partnerships identified through the Healthcare Anchor Network. To analyze the interviews, we used a two-stage coding process. First, we coded responses based on the phase of the intervention to which they corresponded: motivation, initiation, implementation, or evaluation. Then we assessed responses within each aspect for common themes and variation on salient topics.ResultsPartnerships were generally motivated by a combination of community needs, such as affordable housing and living wage jobs, and health system interests, such as workforce housing and supply chain resilience. Initiating projects required identifying external partners, educating leadership, and utilizing risk mitigation strategies to obtain health system buy-in. Implementation took various forms, with healthcare organizations providing financial capital in the form of grants and loans, social capital in the form of convening funders and other stakeholders, and/or capacity building support in the form of strategic planning or technical assistance resources. To evaluate projects, healthcare organizations used more process and community-level metrics rather than metrics based on individual health outcomes or returns on investment. Based on best practices from each partnership phase, we provide a roadmap for healthcare organizations to develop effective community wealth building partnerships.ConclusionsAssessing healthcare partnerships with community wealth building organizations yields key strategies healthcare organizations can use to develop more effective partnerships to address the upstream causes of poor health.

Community-driven research and capacity building to address environmental justice concerns with industrial air pollution in Curtis Bay, South Baltimore.

Curtis Bay (CB) is an environmental justice (EJ) community in South Baltimore. With a high concentration of industrial polluters and compounding non-chemical stressors, CB has experienced socioeconomic, quality of life, and health burdens for over 100 years. Today, these polluters include the open-air CSX Coal Terminal, waste-to-energy incinerators, and heavy diesel traffic through residential areas. The Community of Curtis Bay Association, Free Your Voice, and South Baltimore Community Land Trust are local organizations enacting a vision for equitable, healthy, and community-led development without industrial encroachment. In response to community-identified EJ concerns and an explosion at the CSX Coal Terminal, CB community groups partnered with academic researchers to develop a community-driven hyperlocal air monitoring and capacity building approach. This paper describes this approach to characterizing hyperlocal air quality in CB, building bridges between community residents and regulatory agencies, and nurturing a cohesive and effective community-academic partnership toward EJ. Using hyperlocal air monitoring, we are collecting real-time air pollution (particulate matter, black carbon, and ground-level gas species) and meteorological data from 15 low-cost sensors in residential and industrial areas of CB. We also use trail cameras to record activities at the CSX Coal Terminal. We merge air pollution and industrial activity data to evaluate the following: overall air quality in CB, multi-air pollutant profiles of elevated events, spatiotemporal changes in air quality in the community, patterns of industrial activity, and potential correlations between air quality and observed industrial activity. Members of our partnership also lead a high school course educating students about the history and ongoing efforts of the EJ movement in their community. Students in this course learn how to employ qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to bring scientific support to community EJ concerns. Our hyperlocal air monitoring network and community-academic partnership are continuing to evolve and have already demonstrated the ability to respond to community-identified EJ issues with real-time data while developing future EJ leaders. Our reflections can assist other community and academic groups in developing strong and fruitful partnerships to address similar EJ issues.

Co-producing affordable housing futures: tools for community participation

Archio interviewed by Dhruv Sookhoo and Ava LynamKyle Buchanan and Mellis Haward, directors of architectural practice Archio, reflect on their experience developing a toolkit of practices that facilitate co-design of community-led housing.In this interview, Buchanan and Haward examine the participatory approaches that Archio adopts to negotiate the delivery of enhanced housing outcomes [1]. They describe building trust with residents by interpreting their lived experiences and aspirations through architectural knowledge and practices. Discussion focuses on the co-production of design artefacts as tools that enable community stakeholders to negotiate shared ambitions for their neighbourhood within community-based development and regulatory processes (e.g. development management).In 2016, Archio was invited by London Community Land Trust and Citizens UK to compete for the opportunity to design and deliver eleven affordable homes on a disused garage site at Brasted Close, in Lewisham, London [2]. Unusually, a “Pick an Architect” workshop was held on the development site, where the public was able to evaluate prospective architectural teams for their ability to engage future residents and neighbouring communities in the collective examination of fundamental socio-spatial aspects of the project. Archio’s successful approach at the pioneering community land trust at Brasted Close anticipated their development of a toolkit of practices that emphasise collaboration during community-led development of affordable housing. These design tools were refine through use across a series of later commissions including a co-housing project at Angel Yard, Norwich and a resident-led estate regeneration scheme at Astley Estate, Southwark.

A fighting time and a dreaming time: Struggle for right to remain in LA

In this conversation, Martha Escudero from the Reclaim our Homes is in dialogue with Ana Vilenica, sharing her experience of living in extreme housing precarity and her knowledge of tactics for occupying homes in LA, organizing against evictions and creating a community land trust. We also discussed the importance of learning from Indigenous movements across borders, and how they can inspire us to build different ways of organizing in our local communities.

Living on the block: How equitable is tokenized equity?

Recently blockchain has become a tool for spatial coordination and appropriation. Globally, the tokenization of land and housing has led to new forms of datafication and increased financialization. In the case of land non-fungible tokens), security token offerings, and blockchain-based real estate investment trusts, blockchains act as exclusionary digital platforms, with new socio-technical assemblages emerging as complex predatory formations of speculation that are intentionally obfuscatory and difficult to regulate. With the security token offering, crowdfunding and venture capital are combined with cryptocurrency to create a “tokenized venture capital fund” tied to tangible assets, such as ownership rights in housing, real estate, or land. Distributed ledgers are proposed to be used as the digital technology underlying new forms of land/property documentation, ownership, and inhabitation – from conducting and recording land surveys and title creation to transference of land/property rights. This paper addresses the question: how equitable is tokenized equity – does it prioritize the right to the city for all or to all but a very few? This paper looks toward the means of contestation against extractive crypto-settlements, speculation, and housing financialization, critically comparing a range of proposed distributed ledger technology projects that claim to inject equity in the system, pose alternative housing economies, or leverage distributed ledgers for land rights and data sovereignty. I question the utility and limits of datafication and explore how engaging with digital technology – with or without distributed ledgers – can raise awareness and enact alternative forms of housing and land stewardship, from cooperativism to Community Land Trusts and to counter-hegemonic commoning practices.

Trust Land

Abstract In the wake of civil rights struggles, a rural area in Southwest Georgia became a global stage for rehearsing some of the world's most provocative experiments with community and land tenure. An interracial intentional community, a Nation of Islam farm, the first community land trust, and a wave of cooperative experiments moving through the South in the late 1960s and 1970s found fertile ground around Albany, Georgia. Reflecting solidarity between the civil rights, Pan-African, Nonaligned, and Tricontinental movements, associations with prominent international activists also linked this area in the US South to decolonizing efforts in the Global South just prior to a neoliberal turn. Within these networks, victims of white supremacy modeled approaches to survival that are now broadly relevant to today's social and climate justice work. The story offers spatial tools and surprising histories to ground and energize a fresh wave of activism that looks to collective forms of urban and rural landholding to address racism, whiteness, inequality, reparations, and climate change.

Mechanisms to Improve Health Through Community Land Trusts.

Community land trusts (CLTs) provide long-term affordable housing and offer a range of mechanisms that may improve the health and well-being of low-income households. We sought to elucidate these mechanisms through thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with a diverse sample of CLT staff and residents across the USA. Stakeholders most frequently identified improvements in mental health that come through increased housing stability and affordability. Other factors-including the ways that CLTs promote wealth generation, improvements in housing quality and neighborhood amenities, services and partnerships with healthcare organizations, and democratic governance-were raised by respondents though less frequently tied to health benefits. CLTs represent a promising area for future research on housing's impact on health.

Beyond Postcapitalist Economy: Toward a Pluriversal Politics of Transformation in Massachusetts

In the last decade, a solidarity-economy movement has emerged in Massachusetts, with desires to fight against the world as it is and build the world as it should be. This orientation toward a postcapitalist economy helps to overcome capitalocentrism and sparks the radical imagination. But in trying to build elements of a solidarity economy, such as worker cooperatives and community land trusts, this movement has encountered contradictions stemming from the growth mindset of a modernist Western ontology that posits the existence of but one singular reality. As the movement now tries to move beyond a postcapitalist economy as the goal and toward creating other worlds and ways of being, it is valuing and intentionally cultivating more relational ways of being, centering solidarity and care in all the ways that we exist in interdependence with one another and with Earth’s living systems. In the solidarity-economy movement, pluralism is an opening to building the pluriverse.

Establishing a glossary of community-led housing

Recent decades have seen the re-discovery or emergence of a diverse range of housing models such as cohousing, co-operatives, community land trusts, and other forms that seek to address various persistent issues of social, environmental, and economic justice. This has generated commensurate growth in research on the objectives and outcomes of such models, including the creation of relevant typologies of conceptual approaches and schemas of organisational objectives to build understanding of the field’s theoretical and practical implications. Despite the growth of relevant models, their relative unfamiliarity and diversity of forms and objectives means practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and others associated with the field may not understand the forms and objectives of models under examination and development, leading to delays, project failures, and confusion. This paper therefore presents a glossary of community-led housing as a base on which to continue to foster understanding and growth of relevant models, and enable collaborative and comparative work.

Trans Territorialization: Building Empowerment beyond Identity Politics

Transgender/gender non-conforming (TGNC) people and especially people of color face homelessness and housing precarity in the United States at much higher rates than other LGBTQ+ people. In response, during the past decade, TGNC-centered organizations have spearheaded new forms of housing activism, such as cooperatives and Community Land Trusts, building spaces with distinct spatial and aesthetic characteristics. This paper situates those spaces within histories of LGBTQ+ placemaking. It advances the notion of trans territorialization through the analysis of a case study, My Sistah’s House, an organization led by TGNC people of color in Memphis, Tennessee. We analyze trans territorialization as an activist form of spatial appropriation distinct from the better-studied gayborhood model. We assess its generalizable characteristics at three distinct but interrelated scales: dwelling units, community, and cultural embodiment.