Community Land Trusts

Julie Farrell Curtin (Associate, Bocarsly, Emden, Cowan, Esmail & Arndt LLP) and Lance Bocarsly (Partner, have recently published their article entitled CLTS: A Growing Trend in Affordable Home Ownership, 17 J. Affordable Housing & Commun. Dev. L. 367 (2008).

Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

Home ownership is one of the great opportunities for wealth building in the United States of America. Not only does owning one’s own home provide a family with an asset that will appreciate in value over the long term, but home ownership also provides a family with a stable base from which to participate and engage in its broader community. For these reasons, and many others, the promotion of home ownership has long been a goal of various community groups, local and state governments, and even the federal government.

Over time, and especially during the real estate boom from 2001 to 2005, real estate appreciation far outpaced income growth in the United States, making home ownership increasingly out of reach for many low and moderate income families. As a result, a wide variety of tools have evolved to make home ownership affordable for families of modest economic means. Soft-second mortgages, limited-equity cooperatives, condominiums, townhomes, and other common-interest communities are just a few examples of affordable home ownership strategies. Community land trusts (CLTs) are another such model that over the past three and a half decades has become an increasingly accepted tool for creating permanently affordable home ownership.

This article will focus on the CLT as an affordable home ownership strategy. First, we provide an overview of the history and economics of the CLT movement, as well as some common issues and challenges faced by CLTs. Second, we detail several examples of CLTs to illustrate the variations in the use of the CLT model. Third, we provide some analysis of new opportunities, and challenges, for CLTs playing a role in creating permanently affordable home ownership.