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Most Community Land Trusts require a considerable amount of financial and technical assistance to ensure success, particularly in their early stages. It is a challenging process, to align political forces, secure financing, develop organizational capacity, and attract homeowners to the process. Fortunately, there is a national organization that has dedicated itself to providing this very type of assistance for more than 30 years.
The Institute for Community Economics (ICE) is the national intermediary and primary source of technical assistance and informational materials for a growing national community land trust movement. ICE's founders developed the community land trust model in the 1960s and, for the last thirty years, ICE has supported the growth of the CLT movement in urban, suburban, and rural communities across the US . Many capitalize on the technical assistance, financial services and advocacy provided by ICE.
Lending Assistance
Since ICE developed its Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) in 1979, it has loaned more than $34 million to community organizations in 30 states. RLF loans most often finance land acquisition or improvement and acquisition, construction, or the rehabilitation of housing. Amount, terms, rate of interest, and repayment schedules are negotiated on a case-by-case basis. For additional information, contact Institute for Community Economics (413) 746-8660. Or visit the web site: http://www.iceclt.org
How do CLTs relate to
other housing organizations?
Many CLTs are initiated through the sponsorship of other organizations,
or emerge out of other organizations as in the case of Albuquerque 's Sawmill
CLT. Most CLTs cooperate with the efforts of other organizations in their
community. Burlington CLT, for instance, works closely with a network of
organizations that address the area's housing and community development
needs. In a number of communities, CLTs have acquired housing, or the land
beneath housing, that was built or rehabilitated by nonprofit and commercial
developers.
Do local governments support
CLTs?
It is common for CLTs to work in cooperation with local governments in meeting
present and future community needs. A growing number of public officials
recognize that CLTs 
can
play an important role as stewards of community resources and that property
and funds allocated to a CLT can benefit not only present community residents
but future residents as well.
A number of states and municipalities have allocated Community Development Block Grant and HOME funds, as well as other available resources, to CLT programs. Some have allocated city-owned land.
Community Land Trust Network
The CLT Network is a national coalition of Community Land Trusts
and other organizations that work collaboratively to advocate and advance
the CLT movement.
The Community Land Trust Network developed in 1999 as a joint effort between the Institute of Community Economics and mature CLTs and CLT leaders from across the country. The CLT Network is a national coalition of more than 100 CLTs and other grassroots organizations that work collaboratively to advocate and to advance the CLT movement nationwide. The CLT Network advocates for CLTs in public policy and legislative forums and serves as a primary source for information sharing and referral among CLTs. The CLT Network builds coalitions with other networks of housing, environmental, land-use, and social justice activists.
CLT Network Member Benefits
To Become a Member
The CLT Network has two levels of membership.
For more information contact:
Bob Reeder
CLT Network
Director
e-mail:
cltnetdirector@aol.com
How do CLTs relate to
limited equity housing co-ops?
Co-op housing is owned by a corporation that is controlled by the people
who live in the housing. Thus co-op residents do not own their homes individually,
but each household owns a share in the corporation and has a proprietary
lease to their own apartment. When a residents want to move away, they can
sell their share - and their rights as co-op residents - to another buyer. In
the case of limited-equity
co-ops, the price for
which shares can be sold is limited by the corporate bylaws to keep the
housing affordable. (In market rate co-ops, shares can be sold for whatever
the market will bear.)
Some CLTs, like the Burlington CLT, CATCH ( Concord , New Hampshire ), and the New Columbia CLT ( Washington , DC ) have developed limited equity housing co-ops on land leased from the CLT. These CLTs can provide important support services to the co-ops, and the land lease can help to ensure long-term affordability by requiring that restrictions on the sale of shares remain in place.
How are CLTs different
from conservation land trusts?
Both CLTs and conservation land trusts control land use for the
benefit of people in the future as well as the present, but they are primarily
concerned with different types and uses of land. Conservation trusts are
concerned with controlling rights to undeveloped land to preserve open space,
ecologically fragile or unique environments, wilderness, or productive forest
or agricultural land. CLTs, on the other hand, are mainly concerned with
acquiring developed or developable land for specific community uses - particularly
residential use. These concerns are not mutually exclusive, and some land
trusts, notably in Vermont , combine these purposes, preserving some land
in a natural state while leasing other land for development.
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