What Community Land Trusts Can Do for Racial Equity

Empowering Black Americans with access to own property and build wealth is key to cities addressing decades of racist policies and inequality.

Why you can trust us

By Mark Roseland &
Christopher Boone

4 MIN READ

Sep 17, 2020

American cities represent part of the nation鈥檚 long and against Black people. They can also be part of the recovery from all that harm.

Some cities鈥� work can be symbolically important, such as removing public monuments that honor oppression. But as professors of and at Arizona State University, we see that to address inequality, starting with an area that was key to past discrimination: how land is used.

Zoning rules, including requirements that prohibit duplexes or anything other than , have helped maintain class and racial segregation. that discriminate mostly against people of color in specific urban neighborhoods have in U.S. cities.

One result is that the average Black family with children in the U.S. has just held by the average White family with children.

Some calls to resolve these inequalities have with century-old roots: community land trusts to assemble land for the .

Cities consider compensation

Some cities are already looking at ways to promote racial equality. In July, the Asheville, North Carolina, city council a resolution directing the city manager 鈥渢o in the Black community.鈥�

Also in July, the , issued an executive order 鈥� for Black, Indigenous (Indian) People, and People of Color in Providence.鈥�

To carry out these lofty goals, they could take a page from history.

A new kind of land ownership

In the 1960s, civil rights organizers recognized that denying property rights was a key method of reinforcing White supremacy in the U.S., blocking people from putting down roots in a community, limiting their political power as well as wealth.

They devised a system called a 鈥溾€� as a way for for their own benefit. This was in stark contrast to the sharecropping system prevalent after the Civil War, where Black families would rent small plots of land, or shares, to work themselves and in return give a at the end of the year.

The first community land trust in rural Georgia in 1970 was established on land purchased by a small group of individuals with some federal grant assistance and became , who got to keep all the proceeds from their labor. Although the trust, , was beset by drought and discrimination from the start and was forced to close by the late 1980s, it helped inspire people to create similar organizations across the country.

Community land trusts today are more often focused on housing. They are that aim to help low-income buyers obtain homes. Trust land can be purchased or donated. The model allows community ownership of the land with individual ownership of houses.

Community land trusts are a form of permanently affordable housing based on shared equity.

With this model, a buyer can get into a home for less money than elsewhere in the local market, because they aren鈥檛 paying for the land鈥攋ust the building. This makes homes more affordable, especially for low-income families who often can get down-payment assistance and low-interest mortgages from the trust as well.

The residents, who become members of the trust, elect board members to govern the organization and guide its development and investments to meet community needs and priorities.

Community land trusts are a form of based on . The trust retains ownership of the land and maintains it to benefit homeowners present and future and the community as a whole. The homeowner leases the land but owns the building and pays for improvements.

The land lease sets out terms for any future sale of the property, letting the homeowner build equity through appreciation in value, while . This sort of shared-equity model may not appeal to people who can afford open-market housing. But for those otherwise priced out of the housing market, it is an opportunity to build equity and wealth, and establish credit and financial stability.

These by providing long-term leases with limits on rent prices, as well as by investing in housing in communities where others won鈥檛. They also can give a more formal voice to tenants, who otherwise are often ignored by local officials.

The U.S. now has between 225 and 280 community land trusts, which together have .

To encourage more of this type of development, in 2017 exempting community land trusts from certain taxes. in 2019 announced a plan to use a to develop 1,000 affordable units.

A history of working together

Local governments have formed several kinds of partnerships with community land trusts. In June, the city of Seattle announced it would transfer a decommissioned fire station to the Africatown Community Land Trust, saying 鈥� and increasing community ownership of land.鈥� Community members hope the site will play a key role in a . It鈥檚 one of several proposals in the region for .

Cities have also used municipal zoning powers to require larger developers to donate a portion of new development to community land trusts or related entities such as for permanently affordable housing.

Partnerships between cities and community land trusts are a promising way to provide affordable housing and help low-income and minority families. As cities reflect on their roles in perpetuating institutional racism and what they can do to relieve it, they can use their zoning laws and negotiating power to support community land trusts, as one way to keep housing affordable and benefit minority communities.

This article was originally published by . It has been published here with permission.

Mark Roseland is a senior sustainability scientist and a professor of community resources and development at Arizona State University.

Christopher Boone is dean and professor of sustainability at Arizona State University. His research focuses on sustainable urbanization, environmental justice, vulnerability, and global environmental change.