Revisiting the Community Land Trust: An Academic Literature Review

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Revisiting the Community Land Trust: An Academic Literature Review

By CED Program Interns & Students

Published December 9, 2022

Housing costs and supply are dominating the news at the moment.  Housing is the highest monthly bill typical Americans face, reaching an average of $1674 a month in 2021. Housing prices have increased far faster than incomes (Miller 2015), making affordable homeownership inaccessible for many aspiring homeowners (Hackett et al. 2019). This has been especially true in major municipalities, and North Carolina has been no exception.

One possible tool to address the affordable housing crunch is the Community Land Trust (CLT). CLTs provide a community ownership approach to providing affordable housing, trying to balance the homeowner desire to build equity with the community and societal desire to maintain an affordable housing stock and the desire of local governments and other funders to sustain housing intervention funding. This movement is now gaining attention from key stakeholders, including the National League of Cities.

The CLT model provides an alternative to the typical housing market and works to protect both homeowner and community interests simultaneously. In this model:

• A CLT obtains ownership of a parcel of land and the housing structure(s) on that land through purchase, donation, or other methods.
• A below-medium income prospective homeowner agrees to a CLT contract, typically leasing the land at a low rate for a 99-year term and buying the home.
• The homeowner enjoys the home, builds equity, and makes improvements. They can bequeath the property to a family member or sell to an approved buyer.
• The CLT limits price growth for the home, typically around 3 percent per year, and removes land costs from the sale price, protecting long-term affordability.

Over 225 CLTs have developed since their inception in the 1960s (Grounded Solutions Network 2021), and fifteen states have some version of a positive law supporting CLT formation and affirming CLT legality in their state (Decker 2018).  More background on the legal and tax aspects of CLTs in North Carolina can be found in this earlier CED Blog post. This post reviews the national research on the benefits of and cautions for those interested in CLTs.  A list of the full citations of the articles referenced can be found at the end of this post.

Why are CLTs a useful tool?

Researchers have identified CLTs as a strategy to increase the affordable housing supply while protecting the interests of the community, homeowner, and governments or other funders:

• CLT homeowners have an increased stake in their communities, and as a result, they’re likely to do their part in helping the community grow and help to increase community capacity (DeFilippis et al. 2019)
• CLTs offer reliable stewardship of community land assets and a long-term promise of affordable housing (Davis 2010)
• CLT homeownership helps to protect property values from economic shocks—both the property owned by the trust and other properties nearby (Decker 2018, Nelson 2020).

How are CLTs different from other affordability tools?

• Other affordability strategies become more expensive over time while CLTs resist this change. Inclusionary zoning or LIHTC units only provide below-market housing for a fixed period (Miller 2015), and Housing Choice Vouchers become more costly as rents rise. CLTs can keep their units affordable rather than adapting to market prices. (Meehan, 2014)
• Government homeowner subsidies only provide a subsidy for the first homeowner—the subsidy has no impact on pricing when that homeowner sells. One-time investments in CLT properties can keep those properties affordable as long as the CLT exists, ensuring affordability for far longer (Institute for Community Economics 1982, Jacobus and Brown 2010, White 2011).

Where have CLTs been established?

CLTs can be found in Irvine CA, Burlington VT (NYU case study here), Tucson AZ, and Austin TX among others across the country, (Jacobus and Brown 2010).  North Carolina also hosts CLTs in Durham, Chapel Hill, Asheville, Wilmington, and other cities.

How do local governments in these states support CLTs?

Local government support is crucial to successful CLTs, and strategies vary between municipalities (Davis and Jacobus 2008). It’s important to be strategic to promote relationship synergy and maximize benefits for both parties (White 2011).

• Local governments can provide land to CLTs or sell properties to CLTs at a favorable rate (Abello 2021), including this example in Chicago.
• Other cities waive property taxes on CLT properties since the land is not intended to be sold ever again. The property tax rules for CLTs in North Carolina are described in an earlier post.
• A few local governments have granted eminent domain takings power to CLT partners to acquire dilapidated adjacent land (Meehan 2014).
  • Some CLTs invite municipal government representatives onto their governing board, adding to the standard mix of community members and CLT owners (Davis 2010).

Where can I find information about best practices for CLTs?

In addition to the National League of Cities 2022 guide to CLTs, several non-profit organizations have information on CLT best practices, such as groundedsolutions.org and communitywealth.org. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has several free working papers on the importance of community engagement in CLTs based on research within established trusts, as does the Resilient Communities Project at the University of Minnesota, and the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Scholars have produced individual case studies in populous cities (Abello 2021, Curtain and Bocarsly 2010, Jacobus and Brown 2010, Miller 2015), and these studies alone indicate expansive variety. CLT research is still growing; there’s much more work to be done especially in understanding rural land trusts.

CLTs should be considered as an option for communities seeking to strengthen their affordable housing options. As the CLT network spreads across the nation, it may be time for more communities, large and small, to look at the options presented by CLTs to address affordable housing pressures.

Jamie Andrews is a student in the Master of Public Administration program at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Bibliography:

• Abello, Oscar P. “An Unusual Community Land Trust in Colorado Is Making Its Mark.” org, August 2021.
• Abromowitz, David and Kirby White. “Deed Restrictions and Community Land Trust Ground Leases: Two Methods of Establishing Affordable Homeownership Restrictions.” In The Community Land Trust Reader, edited by John Emmeus Davis, 327-334. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2010.
• Curtain, Julie F., and Lance Bocarsly. “CLTs: A Growing Trend in Affordable Home Ownership.” In The Community Land Trust Reader, edited by John Emmeus Davis, 289-314. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2010.
• Davis, John E., and Rick Jacobus. The City-CLT Partnership: Municipal Support for Community Land Trusts. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2008.
• Davis, John E., Rick Jacobus, and Maureen Hickey. “Building Better City-CLT Partnerships: A Program Manual for Municipalities and Community Land Trusts.” Working Paper, Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, 2008. https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/1401_717_djh_yesim_final.pdf
• Davis, John E. “FROM Development without Displacement: Organizational and Operational Choice in Starting a Community Land Trust.” In The Community Land Trust Reader, edited by John Emmeus Davis, 259-268. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2010.
• Decker, Andrew. “Community Land Trusts and State Legislation: A Model Act to Enable This Affordable Housing Tool.” Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law 26, no. 3 (2018): 489-530.
• DeFilippis, James, Olivia R. Williams, Joseph Pierce, Deborah G. Martin, Rich Kruger, and Azadeh Hadizadeh Esfahani. “On the Transformative Potential of Community Land Trusts in the United States.” Antipode 51, no. 3 (2019): 795-817.
• Engelsman, Udi, Mike Rowe, and Alan Southern. “Community Land Trusts, Affordable Housing and Community Organising in Low-Income Neighbourhoods.” International Journal of Housing Policy 18, no. 1 (2018): 103-123.
• Grounded Solutions Network. “Community Land Trusts.” Grounded Solutions Network. Accessed 5 November 2021. https://groundedsolutions.org/strengthening-neighborhoods/community-land-trusts
• Hackett, Kristen A., Susan Saegert, Deshonay Dozier, and Mariya Marinova. “Community Land Trusts: Releasing Possible Selves Through Stable Affordable Housing.” Housing Studies 34, no. 1 (2019): 24-48.
• Institute for Community Economics. The Community Land Trust Handbook. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1982.
• Jacobus, Rick and Michael Brown. “City Hall Steps In: Local Governments Embrace Community Land Trusts.” In The Community Land Trust Reader, edited by John Emmeus Davis, 335-341. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2010.
• Meehan, James. “Reinventing Real Estate: The Community Land Trust as a Social Invention in Affordable Housing.” Journal of Applied Social Science 8, no. 2 (2014): 113-133.
• Miller, Stephen R. “Community Land Trusts: Why Now Is the Time to Integrate This Housing Activists’ Tool into Local Government Affordable Housing Policies.” Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law 23, no. 3 (2015): 349-371.
• Nelson, Katharine, James DeFilippis, Richard Kruger, Olivia Williams, Joseph Pierce, Deborah Martin, and Azadeh Hadizadeh Esfahani. “The Commodity Effects of Decommodification: Community Land Trusts and Neighborhood Property Values.” Housing Policy Debate 30, no. 5 (2020): 823-842.
• White, K. (Ed.). (2011). The CLT Technical Manual. National Community Land Trust Network. https://groundedsolutions.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/Community%20Land%20Trust%20Technical%20Manual_0.pdf