Social movements have been a crucial part of every major political shift in modern history. However, in between moments of upheaval, having structures in place that can survive the whims of both politics and market forces is incredibly important in continuing the momentum of those movements for societal change.
During the Civil Rights Movement, activists sought out ways to secure long-term economic stability for Black communities facing systemic dispossession. One lasting solution they developed was the community land trust (CLT), a model designed to ensure collective land ownership and permanent housing affordability. CLTs can serve as a strong foundation towards providing real community wealth in the lives of people historically boxed out of the housing market.
Community land trusts are nonprofit organizations that own and serve as stewards of land to the benefit of a surrounding community. Property on the land is either rented out or sold at affordable rates. According to Grounded Solutions, a network for CLTs and a member organization of NCRC:
The purchase price is more affordable because the homeowner is only buying the house, not the land. The homeowners lease the land from the community land trust in a long-term (often 99 years long), renewable lease. The homeowners agree to sell the home at a restricted price to keep it affordable in perpetuity, but they may be able to realize appreciation from improvements they make while they live in the house.
By maintaining control of the land beneath the properties, CLTs can determine what kinds of structures can be built on the land. This can look like constructing affordable housing or ensuring that an abandoned school becomes a community center instead of costly condominiums. The CLT operating structure can help keep out harmful developers and stifle the flood of gentrification by keeping everything affordable.
Unlike housing co-ops that focus solely on the ownership of buildings, CLTs have more control and protection from market pressures by controlling the land itself as well as maintaining ownership of the physical structures. While efforts to own land for collective benefit go further back in human history, the first modern American conception of a community land trust came out of the Civil Rights Movement. A Black-owned farm cooperative called New Communities was established by seasoned leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in 1969. They purchased land in Southwest Georgia and, within a year, held the single largest African American-owned tract of land in the country. Despite decades of struggle against government officials just to exist, New Communities continues on today and inspired generations of CLT leaders along the way.
The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), an NCRC member organization in Massachusetts, is the product of a similar political effort. It sprang forth from communities in Boston that sought to address illegal dumping and fight back against encroaching gentrification in the mid-1980s. Over time, they won the fight against the City of Boston’s eminent domain (the ability to seize privately owned land) efforts and acquired 30 acres of land within the city. Through their decades of organizing, land purchases and relationship building in the community, DSNI helped house the families of 450 public school students in 2023 alone, with the aim of permanently reducing student homelessness in Boston.
The Tacoma Urban Land Trust (TULT), another NCRC member organization in Washington state, officially began in 2001. TULT was created after decades of community development work initiated by two community activists: Bob Galluci and Bill Bischel. TULT focuses on two main program areas: a learning center and a community garden. These entities help residents grow their own food and learn important skills, like healthy cooking and composting practices, while providing space for communal activities, such as movie nights and potlucks.
Another NCRC member organization, the Champlain Housing Trust (CHT), is the largest CLT in the country. The Vermont-based organization recently created a new affordable housing community at the site of a former motel. By the end of this month, they hope to have 94 new homes for rent or sale, with rent prices capped at roughly one-third of the income levels of the low- to moderate-income residents slated to live in the community. Three-bedroom apartments will be priced at $600 under the market rate.
CHT’s predecessor organization, the Burlington Community Land Trust, was formed in 1984 following decades of social movement agitations in Burlington that also culminated in the election of the CLT-friendly mayor, current US Senator Bernie Sanders. The city continues to help fund CHT, though today it relies on a large variety of backers, including $20 million from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. CHT currently owns 3,000 properties, providing real financial stability for low-income families at a time of rising rents.
In the face of land grabs by trillion-dollar hedge funds and a housing market that has long priced out multiple generations of historically marginalized families, communal ownership of land is paramount. CLTs are a means of preserving the values of civil rights movements that birthed them while transforming the communities that are the descendants of this important history. In the words of Aaron Miripol, CEO of the Denver-based CLT the Urban Land Conservancy: “Land is finite [so] you want to protect it as much as possible.”
Akin Olla is a Contributing Writer.
Photo credit: Alfo Medeiros via Pexels.
Community land trusts provide an important option for individuals and households not only to acquire housing they can afford but to become part of a community of shared values. Beginning in the late 1800s there were a number of utopian communities established that included by design mixed-use development. The terms of the ground lease provided for periodic adjustment of the annual ground rent charge based on changes in the rental value of locations within the community. One of the more successful such communities is the town of Fairhope on Mobile Bay in Alabama. Any town or city that gains a local option to move to a land-value only form of property tax has the potential to realize many of the same benefits as exist under a community land trust structure. The reason is that when anything close to the full potential annual rental value of the locations in a community is publicly captured, land prices will fall to very low levels. Creating a community land trust requires gaining control of a sizeable amount of land, raising the funds to create needed infrastructure, then attracting people to lease the land and construct homes (and businesses). The public capture of land rent (exempting housing and other buildings from the tax base) responds to the scale of the housing affordability problem in a way that CLTs are not able to achieve.