What's a Community Land Trust? Read on...

What do you think happens to a community when a lot of its real estate is owned by a business or by individuals who speculate in real estate in order to make a profit? For the answer, you probably need only look around you. Wherever you may live right now, odds are good that the situation I've just described is happening. Before I go about giving my answer to the question, I'd like to ask you to consider another question. What philosophy do you think motivates and informs the use of real estate as a revenue-generating venture? Would you consider it a long-term view? Would you consider it a philosophy that takes the needs of others into account?

Speaking in generalities, when much of a community's real estate is tied up in profit-motivated ventures--be it rental property, "flipping" for profit, or the diversification of one's investment portfolio--the non-affluent, non-owning members of a community are effectively prevented from access and long-term, responsible use of a community's land. When real estate is being held for short-to-medium-term private gain, the vast majority of a community's members' housing and agricultural needs are overlooked and "the market" becomes an often insurmountable obstacle. I could talk about the role of predatory, sub-prime lending that purports to provide "opportunity" to those alienated by real estate-for-gain, but since that will take me a little too far off topic, I'll save it for another day. Suffice to say that I believe the current crises in mortgage lending--and the resulting foreclosures--are directly related to real estate as speculation.

Nearly all of us have heard about the shortage of affordable housing, and some of us may even have heard about the shortage of agricultural land. But how many of us link these problems to real estate speculation? Although the problem of land availability and use has many root and perpetuating causes, I believe that at the present time, for non-First Nation peoples, real estate speculation is driving the lack of affordable housing and agricultural land. It is thwarting the efforts of hard-working community members to have a long-term place to call home.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, folks. I'm coming to my topic!

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) were created in the U.S.--sometime in the 1960s--to address the need for local control of land and other resources, and to make affordable housing and agricultural land stewardship possible. CLTs are democratically controlled organizations that hold land for common good. They provide long-term (99 years usually), renewable leasing of land to a community's members. They are usually either focused on conservation of land (such as agricultural land) or on housing and community development. How--you may ask--does this specifically make housing more affordable? CLTs usually enact "limited equity" policies that help maintain the long-term affordability of a property and make home ownership (via long-term lease) possible for persons with low or limited incomes. These policies essentially remove the "market" pressures that have so negatively impacted those with few resources. What's more, CLTs organize neighborhoods and communities, engage in community development and provide financing to try and address the long-term needs of a specific locale.

I only learned of the existence of CLTs about 15 months ago, and although there are now more than 80 CLTs nationwide, I was dismayed to learn there is not, as yet, a CLT in my community. There are more being developed all the time, however. If you're interested in learning more about CLTs, visit the Institute for Community Economics (ICE) website at www.iceclt.org/clt for information.

CLTs. Another way of keeping land and other resources in a shared, localized, community trust. A beautiful idea who's time has come.