Anthony Flint
Along with the price of eggs and gasoline, the high cost of housing was very much on the minds of voters in the recent election cycle, according to exit polls. Frustrations boiled over at the monthly rent soaking up paychecks, or young people not being able to purchase a first-time starter home like their parents did. Incumbents were punished for not doing enough about it.
Their angst is quantifiable. A record 42.9 million U.S. households are cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs, according to an analysis released just this month by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Home prices reached a new all-time high in 2024, such that the U.S. home price index is now nearly 50 percent higher than in early 2020.
The near-term solution according to most economists and policymakers is to increase supply – particularly of multifamily housing – by better identifying buildable land and easing overly restrictive zoning.
Those are solid policies to confront regional housing markets that refuse to cool down. But there’s also a companion approach that has been quietly producing good results from coast to coast: Community land trusts, where buyers purchase the home but not the land underneath – the land being the most expensive part.
As a critical bonus, that affordability is permanent, as CLTs impose strict limits on resale price, which keeps the homes accessible for one income-qualified household after another.
How CLTs Work
There are currently 320 CLTs in the US, up from 200 in 2008, according to the International Center for Community Land Trusts. A typical arrangement: a municipality works with a non-profit organization to establish a 99-year ground lease on property – sometimes under-utilized publicly owned land — where in many cases modestly higher-density housing is built. Taking land out of the equation immediately reduces costs.
When homebuyers – very often first-timers, deprived of a supply of starter homes that are within budget – purchase just the house, they agree to restrictions of how much profit they can make on any resale. Virtually every buyer is happy to do so; they view the home as safe and comfortable shelter, rather than real estate as a commodity. The resale covenants ensure the homes are affordable in perpetuity.
The CLT model has proven to be a practical success, but it requires high-level collaboration and community engagement, as we found in our recently published report, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts. Co-authors John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries interviewed more than 100 CLT stakeholders, which revealed an increasing sophistication in the stewardship of these extraordinary communities – and a capacity for meeting the moment.
In Sonoma County, California, for example, the Housing Land Trust of the North Bay piloted a strategy for rapidly erecting manufactured houses in fire-ravaged areas. The Lahaina CLT was formed in Hawaii in the aftermath of wildfires that destroyed 2,200 structures on Maui in 2023. CLTs in Houston, New Orleans, Puerto Rico and the Florida Keys were at the forefront of rebuilding neighborhoods destroyed by increasingly intense hurricanes.
Storied History, New Applications
Some Community Land Trusts are collections of existing buildings and offer homes for sale or rent; others extend for several blocks or an entire neighborhood. Arguably, Singapore has become one giant CLT, with government leasing land for housing and commercial development.
The storied history of CLTs suggests that there would be emerging varieties and nimble applications to present-day challenges including climate change.
The seeds for the concept were planted by 19th century political economist Henry George, who argued that ever-higher rents charged by landlords were unearned profits, because society created land value by building infrastructure nearby, for example. The critique led to notions of “land as common property” and experimental communities such as Fairhope, Alabama and Arden, Delaware: homes owned by individuals, land owned by the collective community.
New Communities Inc. near Albany, Georgia, the first official CLT, was borne of the Civil Rights struggle, formed to secure access to land for African American farmers in 1969. Burlington, Vermont, hosted another pioneering CLT, cheered on by then-mayor Bernie Sanders, circa 1984.
Make no mistake, CLTs are finding traction in red and blue states alike, as a fiscally prudent strategy for making a dwindling supply of buildable land and public resources do more, go further and last longer.
More municipalities are starting CLTs, including Tampa, Florida, which set aside part of a $10 million bond for that purpose, and Indianapolis, Indiana, which appropriated $1.5 million to start a citywide CLT.
So it is that Community Land Trusts are thriving in the 21st century, a housing solution hiding in plain sight. They are well worth a look in any jurisdiction feeling those intense affordable housing pressures, as a centerpiece for any multi-pronged affordability strategy, alongside relaxing parking requirements, allowing accessory dwelling units or facilitating office-to-residential conversions. Today’s hard-pressed communities can be confident that it’s a concept that works.
Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think tank based in Cambridge.
