Community Land Trusts

How a Community Land Trust (CLT) works:

A community is struggling with things like:

  • Rising housing costs and commercial rents
  • Overcrowding and displacement
  • Lack of community and open spaces
  • Vacant buildings and lots

Community members work together to form a Community Land Trust (CLT), a non-profit, democratically governed organization that gets and keeps land in trust on behalf of the community. Membership might include:

  • Residents of the CLT
  • Members of the surrounding community
  • Public officials, housing experts, and other advisers

The CLT facilitates community-driven planning to address the community’s immediate and long-term needs. It works with resident groups, non-profit housing developers and other organizations to:

  • Preserve and enhance low-income housing and other places of value to the community
  • Develop unused spaces to meet community needs