User:Hanyang Dong/Community land trust

The model spreads[edit]
Under Matthei's tenure, the number of community land trusts increased from a dozen to more than 100 groups in 23 states, creating many hundreds of permanently affordable housing units, as well as commercial and public service facilities. With colleagues Matthei guided the development of 25 regional loan funds and organized the National Association of Community Development Loan Funds, later known as the National Community Capital Association. From 1985–1990, Matthei served as a founding Chairman of the Association and from 1983–1988 he served as a founding board member of the Social Investment Forum, the national professional association in the field of socially responsible investment. Matthei and his colleagues at the Institute for Community Economics also launched an effort in the early to mid-1980s to address many of the legal and operational questions about CLTs that were arising as banks, public officials and by an ecumenical association of churches and ministries created to prevent the displacement of low-income, African-American residents from their neighborhood. During the 1980s, the number of urban CLTs increased dramatically. The first urban CLT, the Community Land Cooperative of Cincinnati, was founded in 1981. CLTs were sometimes formed, as in Cincinnati, in opposition to the plans and politics of municipal government. In other cities, like Burlington, Vermont and Syracuse, New York, community land trusts were formed in partnership with a local government. One of the most significant city-CLT partnerships was formed in 1989 when a CLT subsidiary of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative was granted the power of eminent domain by the City of Boston.

One of the earliest and most influential CLTs in the United States is the Burlington Community Land Trust (BCLT) in Vermont, which was founded in 1984 as an initiative of the municipal administration led by Mayor Bernie Sanders. The BCLT was a response to rapidly increasing housing costs that threatened to price out many long term residents of the city. BCLT is now known as the Champlain Housing Trust (CHT). CHT owns the underlying land but residents of CHT own the house or unit in which they live. Residents of CHT pay no more than 30% of their income in rent or mortgage payments, and resale prices of units cannot increase more than a previously specified percentage so that future generations of low income and moderate income people can also afford to live in the development. Half of CHT's units are in Burlington, and half outside. CHT has provided a substantial increase in the Burlington area's affordable housing stock, with CHT units comprising 7.6% of total housing in Burlington.

In Scotland, the community land movement is well established and supported by government. Members of Community Land Scotland own or manage over 500,000 acres of land, home to over 25,000 people.

There are currently 255 CLTs in England and Wales, with over 17,000 members and 935 homes. The movement has grown rapidly since 2010, when pioneer CLTs and supporters established the National CLT Network for England and Wales. CLTs were defined in English law in section 79 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008. CLTs in the UK share most of the defining features with CLTs in the United States. But they have tended to have a greater focus on the participation of their local members and community-level democracy, and are more likely to emerge as grassroots citizen initiatives. In Scotland they are also associated with communities reclaiming land from absentee aristocratic landowners.