Can community land trusts help increase home ownership in Cincinnati and Dayton?
Over time, property is almost guaranteed to go up in value. That’s a problem if you have a limited income and want to buy a house. Unless the house is in a community land trust (CLT), which retains ownership of the land and restricts the price the home can be sold for (to remain affordable). CLTs are slowly gaining steam across the US and there is evidence this model is working.
Where did the idea come from and how does it work?
Community-owned land has its roots in many places, including England’s Garden City Movement, India’s Land Gift Movement, planned agricultural communities in Israel and Mexico and rural socialism in Tanzania. In these models land is collectively owned and leased or given to residents.
This video from the Grounded Solutions Network explains the idea behind the CLT in the United States:
Eight people, including civil rights activist Charles Sherrod traveled to Israel in 1968 to learn about the Israeli kibbutz. This was on the heels of protests in Albany, Georgia where Black farmers were having trouble acquiring land. The next year they laid plans for New Communities Inc., a 6,000-acre tract of farmland and forests and the largest single piece of Black-owned farmland in the country. It was to become the first US land trust.
The widow of Charles Sherrod, Shirley Sherrod, told Brick by Brick hundreds of Blacks would become homeowners through a long-term renewable lease on the lot where their house was located.
“That plan was about 400 and something pages. I mean, we planned every phase of that community and the people who were going to live there became part of that planning process.” Sherrod remembered, “It was really empowering to hear people talk about what they wanted in education, what they wanted in healthcare and were really to work for that. But of course, because of the opposition, we couldn’t move forward with that.”
New Communities Inc. faced challenges, including violence from white landowners. And instead of a land trust, the organization used the land for collective farming. However, a government denial of emergency funds following a drought forced it into foreclosure in 1985.
After winning a federal lawsuit, it eventually bought another property (a former slave plantation) and is now under the umbrella of The Sherrod Institute, focused on developing community food systems, supporting human rights through community organizing, plus farmer and consumer education.
Pine growing Workshop
Irrigation Installation
Beekeeping Workshop
Sherrod is encouraged community land trusts have sprouted up all over the country. “I really didn’t know until later years that others were actually using the model that we created.”
Southwest Ohio ties
It took twenty to thirty years for the community land trust model to reach other areas of the country including Cincinnati where the first urban CLT was founded in 1981. The Community Land Cooperative of Cincinnati eventually turned its properties over to Seven Hills Community Housing. Seven Hills tells Brick by Brick it is no longer a land trust. In the last ten years it sold two affordable properties to homeowners, including the land.
Also in Cincinnati is an organization called Renting Partnerships where residents can earn equity by doing work at their apartment and paying rent on time. This land trust helps them save money that could eventually be used to make a down payment on a house.
Yellow Springs, Home, Inc., is a traditional CLT formed in the late 1990s.
Brick by Brick’s Hernz Laguerre Jr. reports on both Renting Partnerships and Yellow Springs Home, Inc. in the podcast.
Home, Inc. has been meeting with the Dayton Tenants Union and others in hopes of starting a community land trust in Dayton.
What other land trusts are doing
The largest land trust is located in Vermont. It has more than 3,000 properties. But most CLTs have fewer than one hundred parcels. In states like California, New York, and Washington, where housing costs are high, there are multiple land trusts. California has more than 40. And CLTs are expanding to Florida, Texas and across the Midwest. This is in part to ward off what is known as “disaster gentrification.” So, despite flooding and wildfires, land can remain affordable. The Lahaina Community Land Trust was formed after the 2023 Maui, Hawaii wildfire.
Community land trusts have evolved. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy says in this 2024 report no two are alike. It surveyed 115 of more than 300 US community land trusts, to determine:
- Their real estate portfolios have become larger and increasingly diverse.
- Their organizational structures have become more diverse.
- Their service areas have grown larger, with many CLTs now serving an entire city, county, or region.
- Racial equity and climate change have become preeminent concerns.
Here’s an interactive international map of community land trusts showing their locations.
Evidence
About 88-percent of people who own homes inside a land trust are first-time home buyers. In Durham, North Carolina one study showed the CLT was successful in stabilizing the neighborhood and preserving affordable housing. And the owner-occupied housing rate increased inside the land trust more than in the City of Durham which had a much higher per capita income. Also, rents increased less for properties managed by the land trust.
CLTs give people a stake in neighborhood development, collective decision making and diversity in the housing market. Rutgers analyzed a large CLT in Minneapolis and says it found strong evidence that land trust properties played a role in stabilizing the city’s neighborhoods that were hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis.
Many land trusts have moved from single developments to scattered sites and from new development to buying existing homes, including Atlanta. The land trust has 70 active homes, one hundred more in development, and an additional 175 in the future pipeline.
Executive Director Amanda Rhein says, “About half of our inventory is town homes and about half are single-family homes. So, it’s a mix of those two. Looking to the future, we’ll probably have a couple of additional housing typologies including accessory dwelling units and duplexes.”
The Atlanta Land Trust is working to increase the size of its portfolio by working with private developers and the Atlanta Land Bank. Like The Port in Cincinnati, it provides a lot of public financing for private development and lets the land trust acquire land for 25-percent of market value. The land trust can also hold the land until it’s ready to develop it.
CLTs have increased 30 percent in the last decade. Indianapolis appropriated one and a half million dollars to start a land trust in 2024 and partner with a nonprofit. Louisville did the same.
Oakland, California has a bigger pot of money. Thanks to a bond levy, it awarded more than $4 million to two CLTs. Oakland and other California land trusts are still waiting for additional state money. CalMatters reports, “The state planned to dole out a half-billion dollars in loans and grants over five years…the sudden disappearance of a half a billion dollars of state money, meant to help community land trusts, has left some housing advocates questioning California’s commitment to preserving existing affordable housing…”
Chicago has started a shared equity investment program, providing up to $100,000 for each affordable unit along with associated carrying costs. The Chicago Crusader quotes Department of Housing Commissioner Lissette Castañeda as saying, “An equity-based, community-led, and anti-displacement focused approach aligns with our department’s mission and doesn’t just create opportunities today, but it also ensures such opportunities are preserved for future homeowners.”
Limitations
At the top of the list of limitations is the cost of buying property. Construction and renovation are also expensive.
In addition, Forbes reports many states west of the Mississippi have stringent limits on donating land to private entities even for affordable housing. This is because many states gave away land to railroads and then got burned. New Mexico and some other states have amended their Constitutions to allow it.
Boston
Even though affordable housing is at the core of Boston’s Chinatown Community Land Trust, it has found it difficult to scale up quickly because of the high cost of property. But the organization sees its mission as more than buying buildings. Lydia Lowe talked about it at the Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts a year ago.
She says, “We’re trying to get rezoning of the community that would favor some of our goals. We’re working for a tenant opportunity to purchase, and we successfully got a short-term rental ordinance that regulates short term rentals.”
The organization reclaimed seven condominiums from short-term rental usage and made them permanently affordable. The CLT is also focused on racial and environmental justice issues, including the creation of an immigrant history trail.
New Orleans
Julius Kimbrough with Crescent City CLT in New Orleans told Shelterforce, “We’re not the solution.” He admitted, “We are going to impact a few neighborhoods and create some affordability, but I really see our work as a demonstration of permanent affordability concepts.” He continued saying, “Our goals are to impact city policy and state policy. We’re looking for permanent affordability to be the standard. That’s how we impact the city beyond the couple of hundred units, couple of thousand, at most that we, as an organization, will ultimately be able to develop.”
Going forward
Scaling community land trusts remains a challenge. As of 2022, shared equity homeownership makes up an exceedingly small portion of total homeownership-13,000 homes. That’s well below 1-percent. At least one housing advocate says it should be 20-percent.
But despite affordably priced homes disappearing at an astonishing rate in the United States, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, “Community land trusts are well positioned to meet the challenge. By 2024 there were 308 CLTs in 48 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
The Institute makes the following recommendations to cities, counties and states who want to start or advocate for one: (pages 84-86)
- Mobilize support that is multifaceted.
- Respect the model’s balance of interests.
- Invest in stewardship as well as development.
- Avoid clawing back in taxes and fees what has been given in subsidies.
- Avoid treating grants as long-term loans.
- Weave preservation into the fabric of government.
- Evaluate impact as well as scale.
- Plan for climate change.
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Ann Thompson – Host, Producer
Over the last thirty years in Cincinnati, Ann Thompson has brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting. She has reported and anchored for WVXU, WKRC, WCKY, WHIO-TV and Metro Networks and freelanced for NPR, CBS and ABC Radio. Her work has been recognized by the Associated Press and she has won awards from the Association of Women in Communications and the Alliance for Women in Media. She is a former News Director and Operations Manager. Ann has reported from India, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Belgium as part of fellowships. Ann thinks of the Brick by Brick project as “journalism for good.” She serves as host and producer. Ann lives in Anderson Township with her husband Scott. They have two boys. Jake graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2022 and Kurt attends West Point.
