Community Land Trusts: Not just housing!

So the easy way to start discussing Community Land Trusts is to talk about housing. How they can create permanent affordability, permanent mixed-income neighborhoods, and more. But, in order to bring back or build stronger neighborhoods, one of the first concerns is often – what about jobs?

So what about jobs? How can a CLT make jobs happen? At their core, CLTs are about ownership. Who owns the land and who has a say over what happens to it. What you put there, be it housing, facilities, commercial, or whatever, is discretionary. The key is ownership, not what happens on the land.

Once you understand this, you can begin to see that CLTs can be used to tackle lots of sticky situations. Does a neighborhood need commercial space? Are developers not willing to take the risk on creating that space? Then it’s a perfect situation for a CLT to help. The CLT can own the land and the commercial space. This provides a peace of mind to donors that their funds are going to be stewarded for years to come. It provides investors a chance to know that their money is doing the work the community wants. And ultimately it gives the community a say about what happens in their midst.

This commercial space can be shops, restaurants, medical facilities, office space, or whatever a community wants it to be. The presence of the CLT means that profit speculation and price hikes in the face of escalating popularity of an area won’t happen. It means that certain businesses or business formations can be encouraged and supported.