The housing crisis is the defining characteristic of many metropolitan areas. In the Lower East Side, market-based housing costs doubled in just one decade in New York’s Lower East Side (Angotti 12). Everyone is impacted by the high cost of housing. One-third of the nation are unable to pay for basic necessities because the cost of housing is too high (Gray 66). Low-income people are particularly negatively impacted, as speculation increases the costs of the land itself. They marketplace preferences the interests of high-income people over lower-income individuals. Simultaneously, because of the large amount of equity held in the land through this process, homeownership has been prefered over rentership. To encourage these equity holdings, for the past four decades, federal housing policy has favored promoting homeownership over rentership. Yet, because of the rising land values, homeownership is largely inaccessible in expensive housing markets. Even in the most expensive American neighborhood, the Upper East Side, 70 percent of people rent (Angotti 2).
Community land trusts present an interesting way to change how land is owned and make it more accessible for low- and moderate-income people. Community land trusts combine individual and collective land ownership. The community land trust purchases own the land, individuals then lease the land from the community land trust. Most community land trusts are based on providing stable and affordable for people who are not served by the marketplace. Thus, they create leases at low rents (Gray 69). This makes homeownership more accessible for people, who would not afford or qualify for loans, even with government assistance. Because the land is leased from the community land trust, instead of truly owned by the individual, the costs remain low over time. This process removes the housing from the marketplace. Instead of renting or buying as an individual, you are part of a compact. The residents are responsible as stewards for the land. Lease-holders make up the majority of the land trusts board. This makes the people living in the housing the proprietors of their own housing costs and quality (Gray 71). In doing so, it takes away the competitive and antagonistic relationship between tenants and landowners. This encourages the collective interest of the community over any one individual’s interests.
Community land trusts provide an alternative to the default laissez faire housing market. They can, therefore, help stabilize neighborhoods facing exponentially increasing rents due to speculative land development. Because of skyrocketing rents in cities across the country, it is not surprising that community land trusts are increasingly popular, with half starting this century and increasing most rapidly in the past decade (Gray 73). They provide the stability that is difficult for low-income renters. Yet they also remain within the marketplace, as a small-scale solution of collective within the greater sea of market-based housing. As a result, community land trusts are not a whole-scale solution, but part of a patchwork of different housing systems for different community groups. For most renters in expensive housing markets, rents will continue to rise, as the local economy grows and new highly paid people move into the community. Community land trusts have begun to create a more equitable system, but expanding quality affordable housing remains difficult for the vast majority. Moving forward, community land trusts beget the question would an equitable system have one form of land and property or use several interlocking systems?
Good question at the end! Certainly not everyone is interested in what a community land trust has to offer because its value system is not based on building individual wealth or even communal profit. Its objective is really to maintain affordability and preserve the people who live in a community at risk of destruction through a variety of market-based factors. Considering all of the processes that have created displacement on the Lower East Side — including gentrification, but also landlord abandonment, climate disaster, and crime — what role do you think a community land trust might play in preventing displacement on a scale that is not just about affordable housing? Our readings really focus on CLTs as a solution for housing, but I think they can offer more, don’t you?
Firstly, I want to say that I appreciate the set up and flow of this post. The way you walk the reader through the reasoning and process behind community land trusts makes it easier for readers to understand your points. Furthermore, I appreciated the fact that you acknowledged the unreasonable pricing of houses in New York and how the government’s solution of “promoting homeownership over renter ship” is not helpful due to the fact that “homeownership is largely inaccessible in expensive housing markets”. It is quite comical that federal housing policy believes homeownership will help appease the problem of overpriced rent and housing shortages, especially when you and I, students, know this is not the case. In addition, your conclusion that community land trusts are helpful but are only “part of a patchwork of different housing systems for different community groups” is extremely reflective of reality. While community land trusts are helpful and make a difference, it’s potential has not been reached due to the lack of “expanding quality affordable housing”. Great job!