On Common Ground

The book’s editors explain why they decided to produce On Common Ground, what it contains, and how they hope the book will be used. They acknowledge the variety of ways in which CLTs are being organized, operated, and applied throughout the world, while pointing to values and commitments that are shared by most CLT practitioners and scholars, including the 42 contributors to the present volume.

The global CLT landscape is one of enormous diversity, even in the United States where the “classic” CLT was conceived. Defining ownership, organizational, and operational features of this “classic” model are detailed in the present chapter, along with the most common variations in each. Five “causes of continuing variation” are considered as well.

Cabannes and Ross revisit the Garden City, originally proposed by Ebenezer Howard over 100 years ago, to ask how his vision might be delivered in a modern setting. Community land trusts, they argue, provide a partial answer, serving as “a vehicle for gradually assembling land and putting Garden City principles into practice – now not later.”

Arguments justifying CLTs tend to focus on their effectiveness in preserving affordability and preventing displacement in strong real estate markets where prices for land and housing are rising. Most justifications regularly overlook the multiple roles that CLTs can also play in improving conditions and empowering residents where real estate markets are weak. The executive director of the Oakland Community Land Trust in California endeavors to correct this rhetorical imbalance, making a case for the CLT’s counter-cyclical effectiveness in all markets, hot and cold.

How did an experimental “model” of community-led development on community-owned land grow from a single CLT prototype in 1969, seeded by African-American activists in a remote corner of the USA, to a national “movement” of over 280 CLTs today? The answer is to be found in five “growth factors”: message; champions; performance; policy; and hybrid vigor. Despite a steady rise in the number of CLTs and the size of their holdings, however, key features of the model and core values of the movement are precarious. The future may look different than the past.

Susannah Bunce and Joshua Barndt (read by Bob Rose)

The development of community land trusts in Canada occurred over a 40-year period in two distinct phases. The first generation of Canadian CLTs (1980 – 2012) either combined community-owned land with multi-unit housing cooperatives in Toronto and Montreal or promoted individual homeownership in western and central Canada. More recently, a second generation of CLTs has emerged in cities throughout the country in response to an escalating crisis in affordable housing, taking the form of either community-based or sector-based initiatives. Since 2017, older and newer CLTs have coalesced, via the Canadian Network of CLTs.

The authors are joined by five guests to map the trajectory of CLT development in England, covering three periods: “Origins of CLT thinking and practice” (1986 – 2008); “a decade of consolidation and growth” (2008-2018); and “potential futures for CLTs” (present and beyond). In the chapter’s conclusion, the question is asked and answered, “What are CLTs really about?”

Since the formation of the Brussels Community Land Trust in 2010, interest in the model has been steadily growing throughout Europe. The chapter takes stock of the current state of the European CLT movement, examining CLT developments in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and central and eastern Europe. Although the focus is on Europe, recent developments in Scotland and Ireland are included as well. The chapter concludes with a description of SHICC (Sustainable Housing for Inclusive and Cohesive Cities), a cross-national collaboration funded by the European Union to further CLT development.

Muchos activistas en América Latina y el Caribe consideran la propiedad colectiva de la tierra como un factor importante para la protección del territorio primigenio, para la promoción de la producción del hábitat, y para la consolidación de comunidades urbanas. Con excepción del Fideicomiso de la Tierra del Caño Martín Peña en San Juan, Puerto Rico, el modelo de los fideicomisos comunitarios de tierras aún no es muy conocido en la región. No obstante, ha habido modelos precursores y equivalentes modernos tales como los ejidos en México, los territorios comunales en Ecuador, y las estrategias para la recuperación de tierras de pueblos indígenas en Bolivia, Brasil, y varios países en el Caribe. En las áreas urbanas, la titularidad cooperativa de la tierra y las viviendas, y la administración cooperativa de reservas extraídas del mercado y bajo el dominio municipal pueden encontrarse en organizaciones como las Cooperativas de Vivienda por Ayuda Mutua en Uruguay, y en varias luchas e iniciativas en Argentina, Brasil, y Venezuela.

El Fideicomiso de la Tierra del Caño Martín Peña en San Juan, Puerto Rico, ganador del Premio Mundial del Habitat de las Naciones Unidas en 2016, se ha convertido en una inspiración para activistas comunitarios en países del sur global que buscan una forma nueva de regularizar la tenencia de la tierra y de asegurar viviendas para residentes en asentamientos informales. Este capítulo examina los orígenes y la estructura organizacional de este fideicomiso comunitario de tierras y su potencial para una aplicación más amplia en otros países.