Development:Community land trust
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Community Land Trust
This is a trust that owns land for community use: in (roughly) the words of the CDS's literature (they push CLTs for their Mutual Home Ownership model), the CLT "takes the land value permanently out of the market and holds it for the benefit of the community".
CLTs aren't a new invention: they're very widespread in the US and elsewhere -- for example they have been used when there have been community buy-outs of Scottish islands. CDS envisages that the CLT would lease land permanently to the housing co-op, but not necessarily all of the land: some might be used for community-run shops, workspace, or other uses.
There isn't (yet) any specific legal definition of a CLT. Any non-profit-making trust that owns land and has some kind of community links could get called a Community Land Trust; it's a currently fashionable buzzword. So different CLTs have different structures. The CDS model of a CLT has "members" which are local community organisations like the council, residents' groups, etc, who together have power to make any decisions the CLT needs to make.
More info can be read at the following links.
communitylandtrust.org.uk
Co-operative Development Society
Burlington Community Land Trust
BCLT is a CLT in America that Charlie Baker said had some interesting stuff on their website.
