Community Land Trusts (CLTs)

A home of their own for the holidays through Frederick Community Land Trust

Jean Marbella
Baltimore Sun

Jean Marbella writes for the Baltimore Sun about community land trust in Frederick. Marbella highlights the work of  Jarrid Green at The Democracy Collaborative: 

Jarrid Green is a research associate with the Democracy Collaborative, a think tank that originated at the University of Maryland with a focus on building community wealth and shared-ownership models. He said that while community land trusts comprise “a very, very small, bite-size piece of the homeownership spectrum,” interest is on the rise.

Green is researching land trusts for a paper he hopes to publish next year. He said he thinks the fact that the Baltimore trusts have joined forces should give them more leverage as they seek city funding.

“It’s going to take the community coming together around the affordable housing issue,” he said. “It’s going to take actual commitment from the politicians.”

Read more in the Baltimore Sun

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Dudley Neighbors Incorporated (DNI)

http://www.dudleyneighbors.org

Founded by the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) to implement and develop DSNI’s comprehensive master plan, Dudley Neighbors Incorporated (DNI) is a community land trust that controls 30 acres of formerly vacant, blighted land in the Dudley Triangle.  The land now houses a community greenhouse, an urban farm, 225 affordable homes (including two cooperative housing projects), commercial buildings with retail and office space, a playground, and gardens.

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Collecting Ourselves

Kris Olsen

The curriculum walks participants through an examination of the philosophy and practice of cooperation, the meaning of "development" and "entrepreneurship" in their lives, the steps required in starting a cooperative business, and an exploration of two of the most important steps - organizing people into a Steering Committee, and creating a Business Plan. All activities use Popular Education methods, drawing directly on the expertise and insight of participants to guide the learning process...read more 

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Atlanta Land Trust Collaborative

http://www.atlantaltc.org

The Atlanta Land Trust Collaborative (ALTC) incubates and supports the development and operation of permanently affordable housing initiatives by independent CLTs across Atlanta.  ALTC works to create a positive climate for CLT development through public policy work, community engagement, and fundraising, while taking on the stewardship function of a CLT in neighborhoods lacking the capacity to do so.  Its work is credited with developing 13 CLT units and generating more than $4 million in funding to support CLT development.  Through partnerships, it also helped acquire more than 30 properties for permanently affordable housing and developed a mortgage project to facilitate the CLT process.

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Origins and Evolution of the Community Land Trust in the United States

John Emmeus Davis

The story told here of the CLT’s origins and evolution will sort the model’s distinguishing characteristics into three clusters – ownership, organization, and operation – and then say how each of them came to be added to the definition and structure of the CLT over time. The reality was much messier, of course, with ideas and influences often leapfrogging the narrative boundaries between eras. History seldom unfolds as neatly in the living as it does in the telling. 

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Do Inclusionary Housing Policies Promote Housing Affordability? Evidence from the Palmer Decision in California

Ann Hollingshead

Many cities have responded to rising affordability challenges with inclusionary housing policies, where a municipality requires or incentivizes a developer building a new development to contribute affordable housing units or pay a fee. While the aim of these policies is to promote housing affordability, some critics have raised concerns about their potential unintended market consequences. Specifically, to the extent that inclusionary housing policies create opportunity costs for developers and function like a tax on housing supply, they may stifle housing production and increase the price of market-rate units, reducing overall affordability. However, inclusionary policies may also increase the supply of affordable housing, which would place downward pressure on prices. This paper examines these relationships using the 2009 ruling by California’s Second District of Appeal, Palmer/Sixth Street Properties LP v. City of Los Angeles, which substantially weakened inclusionary housing policies in the rental market. This analysis fails to find evidence that weakening an inclusionary policy is associated with a decrease in the rental price of high-cost housing units. Meanwhile, these results also suggest that inclusionary housing policies pre-Palmer, in general, did promote housing affordability in the low-cost market. 

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Community Land Trusts: A Promising Tool for Expanding and Protecting Affordable Housing

Michela Zonta
Center for American Progress

This new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) acknowledges the importance and potential of community land trusts (CLTs) to build wealth, stabilize communities, and preserve affordable housing. It outlines the characteristics of shared equity models and provides site acquisition strategies for CLTs. The author makes policy recommendations to restore funding for affordable housing and community development programs, broaden CLT’s access to the secondary market and FHA-backed mortgages, and increase lenders’ comfort with the model:

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Madison Area Community Land Trust (MACLT)

http://affordablehome.org

Founded in 1991, the Madison Area Community Land Trust (MACLT) seeks to ensure permanently affordable housing for lower-income first-time homebuyers in the Madison area.  In 2011, it became affiliated with Common Wealth, which now provides staff to the land trust.  MACLT has developed three neighborhoods, including Troy Gardens, a 31-acre project that includes community gardens, a CSA farm, a restored prairie, and 30 homes.  The other land trust neighborhoods are Camino del Sol, which features Energy Star and Green Built Home- certified homes, and Anniversary Court, which encompasses a mul Read more about Madison Area Community Land Trust (MACLT)...