19.2. Community Land Trust

When seeking to support informal growth patterns, or patterns of affordability, and seeking to apply principles of Land Value Capture, use legal instruments to protect land from excesses of market dynamics, gentrification and displacement.

Problem-statement: One of the biggest drivers of housing cost is often land. This problem is especially acute in urban areas that offer the best opportunities for employment and cultural amenities. For this very reason, however, land for affordable housing often becomes unavailable, or too expensive.

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Discussion: The community land trust is a mechanism that allows land to be set aside for housing, preserving a mix of more affordable housing.

One example is The Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust in Barrio Santurce, a neighborhood of San Juan, Puerto Rico. (It is shown at the start of this pattern.) When market pressures to displace and redevelop their land became enormous, approximately 2,000 families in this poor neighborhood were invited to join a community land trust (CLT) of 80 hectares (200 acres). The CLT protected their homes from displacement, and other public and private programs brought utilities and other necessary upgrades.

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Therefore:

When seeking to provide urban land for affordable housing, use the community land trust model where appropriate.

Do not create giant monolithic “affordable” projects, but create neighborhoods of a mix of incomes with “pepper-potting,” maintaining Integrated Affordability…

¹ Examples are discussed in Meehan, J. (2014). Reinventing real estate: The community land trust as a social invention in affordable housing. Journal of Applied Social Science, 8(2), 113-133.

Mehaffy, M. et al. (2020). COMMUNITY LAND TRUST (pattern). In A New Pattern Language for Growing Regions. The Dalles: Sustasis Press. Available at https://pattern-language.wiki/.../Community_Land_Trust

19.2. Community Land Trust

Aus Pattern Language Wiki

Therefore:

SECTION I:

PATTERNS OF SCALE

1. REGIONAL PATTERNS

2. URBAN PATTERNS

3. STREET PATTERNS

4. NEIGHBORHOOD PATTERNS

5. SPECIAL USE PATTERNS

6. PUBLIC SPACE PATTERNS

7. BLOCK AND PLOT PATTERNS

8. STREETSCAPE PATTERNS

9. BUILDING PATTERNS

10. BUILDING EDGE PATTERNS

SECTION II:

PATTERNS OF MULTIPLE SCALE

11. GEOMETRIC PATTERNS

12. AFFORDANCE PATTERNS

13. RETROFIT PATTERNS

14. INFORMAL GROWTH PATTERNS

15. CONSTRUCTION PATTERNS

SECTION III:

PATTERNS OF PROCESS

16. IMPLEMENTATION TOOL PATTERNS

17. PROJECT ECONOMICS PATTERNS

18. PLACE GOVERNANCE PATTERNS

19. AFFORDABILITY PATTERNS

20. NEW TECHNOLOGY PATTERNS