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• Can a CLT include apartments, condominiums and cooperatives?
• How do CLTs provide rental housing?
• How do CLTs work with housing cooperatives?
• Can a CLT home be a condominium?
• Can tenants buy their building through a CLT?
• Can CLTs work in dense, expensive cities?
• What makes multifamily housing harder for a CLT?

Can a CLT include apartments, condominiums and cooperatives?

Yes. Detached houses are the most familiar CLT homes, but many CLTs, and most of the largest, also hold apartments, condominiums and cooperatives. The Champlain Housing Trust in Burlington, Vermont, owns about 2,500 apartments alongside its resale-restricted homes. Cooper Square in New York City holds only multifamily buildings. Communauté Milton-Parc in Montreal governs a whole neighborhood of cooperatives and nonprofit housing.

The same principle applies to every kind of building: the CLT keeps the land, or a lasting interest in it, so that whatever stands on it stays affordable and under community control. What changes is who owns the building and how the rules are written. In a rental building, the CLT or a nonprofit partner usually owns and manages the building. In a cooperative, the residents own it together through the co-op. In a condominium, each household owns its own unit. John Emmeus Davis notes that multifamily housing “works well with a CLT” but often requires changes to the ground lease, and sometimes to the CLT’s membership and board.

Multifamily housing matters most where land is expensive. In cities, building more homes on each acre is often the only way to make them affordable, and many households who need homes are not ready or able to buy. The questions below look at each form in turn.

Sources

• John Emmeus Davis, “In Land We Trust: Key Features and Common Variations of Community Land Trusts in the USA,” in On Common Ground (Terra Nostra Press, 2020).
• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapter 4. See Joint Publications.
• Tom Angotti, with Cecilia Jagu, “Community Land Trusts and Low-Income Multifamily Rental Housing: The Case of Cooper Square, New York City,” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2007).

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How do CLTs provide rental housing?

In several ways. Some CLTs own and manage apartment buildings themselves. Others lease their land to a nonprofit or to a partnership that uses federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, which owns and runs the building while the CLT keeps the land. When CLTs own rental buildings, they often keep ownership of both the building and the land, rather than separating them as they do for homeowners.

Rental housing lets CLTs serve households who are not in a position to buy, including people with very low incomes, and it can be the largest part of a CLT’s portfolio. Tom Angotti’s study of Cooper Square, Champlain and the Northern California Land Trust found that CLTs were able to provide multifamily rental housing at very low cost compared with local markets, in each case with strong support from local government or the neighborhood.

Some CLTs also preserve housing that would otherwise be lost to the market. In Toronto, the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust worked with local organizations on a strategy to save 59 rooming houses at risk of conversion, and bought a 15-unit rooming house as a pilot. CLTs near new transit lines in Atlanta, Denver and Minneapolis–St. Paul have used land and rental housing to keep neighborhoods affordable as rail lines arrive.

Sources

• Tom Angotti, with Cecilia Jagu, “Community Land Trusts and Low-Income Multifamily Rental Housing: The Case of Cooper Square, New York City,” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2007).
• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapter 4. See Joint Publications.
• John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed and María E. Hernández-Torrales, eds., On Common Ground (Terra Nostra Press, 2020), chapters on Canada and England.
• Robert Hickey, “The Role of Community Land Trusts in Fostering Equitable, Transit-Oriented Development: Case Studies from Atlanta, Denver, and the Twin Cities,” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2013).
• Grounded Solutions Network, Community Land Trusts in the Rental Market (report on rental practices, challenges and opportunities). See groundedsolutions.org.

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How do CLTs work with housing cooperatives?

A growing number of CLTs lease land to zero-equity or limited-equity housing cooperatives. The residents own and govern their building together through the co-op, while the CLT owns the land beneath it and, through the ground lease, keeps it affordable for the long term. Cooper Square in New York City and SquareOne Villages in Eugene, Oregon, hold only cooperative housing. The Lopez Community Land Trust on Lopez Island, Washington, has built seven neighborhoods of cooperatively owned houses. Dudley Neighbors, Champlain, the Douglass CLT in Washington, D.C., and OakCLT in Oakland include co-ops in wider portfolios.

The pairing has real advantages. When a cooperative secures a single “blanket” mortgage for its building, people who join do not need to qualify for a mortgage of their own or make a large down payment, so the co-op can house people with much lower incomes than a CLT house or condominium can. In turn, the CLT gives the co-op something cooperatives often lack: a steward that holds the land, provides training and support, and steps in if the co-op runs into trouble. Meagan Ehlenz’s study of five CLTs with fifteen cooperatives describes these partnerships as a “marriage” of two affordable homeownership models.

Canada’s first CLTs grew out of the cooperative movement. Communauté Milton-Parc, created in 1986, holds land in downtown Montreal through a declaration of co-ownership among fifteen cooperatives and six nonprofit housing corporations, with some 600 homes.

The CLT Technical Manual includes a model ground lease for leasing CLT land to a limited-equity cooperative, adapted from the single-family model lease, with a commentary.

Sources

• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapter 4. See Joint Publications.
• Meagan M. Ehlenz, “Community Land Trusts and Limited Equity Cooperatives: A Marriage of Affordable Homeownership Models?” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2014).
• Tom Angotti, with Cecilia Jagu, “Community Land Trusts and Low-Income Multifamily Rental Housing: The Case of Cooper Square, New York City,” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2007).
• John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed and María E. Hernández-Torrales, eds., On Common Ground (Terra Nostra Press, 2020), chapters on Canada and England.
• Kirby White, ed., The CLT Technical Manual (2011), chapters 15-A and 15-B, “CLTs and Limited Equity Housing Coops,” with a model CLT-co-op lease.

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Can a CLT home be a condominium?

Yes. In expensive cities, condominiums are often the most economical way to build affordable homeownership. Elevation Community Land Trust in Denver, for example, built 92 condominiums in one neighborhood and 49 in another on land banked for it by the Urban Land Conservancy, with funding from the city and state. Buyers own their units, the CLT holds the land under the building, and a ground lease keeps the units affordable on resale.

Sometimes the CLT does not own the land at all. When cities require private developers to include affordable units in new buildings, some ask a CLT to oversee those units for the long term. The CLT then holds a covenant on each affordable condominium, giving it a lasting right to buy the unit back at an affordable price when the owner sells. This is the main case in which the CLT Center sees a deed covenant, rather than a ground lease, as the practical choice: individual units scattered through a mixed-income building.

Sources

• John Emmeus Davis, “In Land We Trust: Key Features and Common Variations of Community Land Trusts in the USA,” in On Common Ground (Terra Nostra Press, 2020).
• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapter 4. See Joint Publications.
• John Emmeus Davis, “Ground Leasing Without Tears,” Shelterforce, 2014.
• Kirby White, ed., The CLT Technical Manual (2011), chapter 14, “CLTs and Condominiums.”

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Can tenants buy their building through a CLT?

Yes, and several CLTs are helping them do it. In Washington, D.C., the Douglass CLT helps tenants use the District’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which gives them the first right to buy their building when it is sold, and brings those buildings into its portfolio of permanently affordable housing. In Philadelphia, the Women’s Community Revitalization Project builds tax-credit rental housing on land held by its Community Justice Land Trust; when the tax-credit period ends, tenants will be able to buy their units, using funds the organization has set aside.

Tenure can move in both directions. In 2012 the Champlain Housing Trust bought South Meadow, a 148-unit rental complex, and has converted part of it to resale-restricted condominiums. Durham Community Land Trustees in North Carolina went the other way, converting some owner-occupied homes to rentals to re-subsidize older buildings and serve households with lower incomes.

Sources

• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapter 4. See Joint Publications.

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Can CLTs work in dense, expensive cities?

Yes, and multifamily housing is how they do it. Cooper Square on Manhattan’s Lower East Side shows what is possible. Its roots go back to 1959, when residents organized against Robert Moses’s plan to clear 11 blocks of the neighborhood. After decades of organizing, the Cooper Square Community Land Trust was created in 1991. A mutual housing association, governed by a board that is two-thirds tenants and one-third appointees of the land trust, manages 303 apartments and 23 commercial spaces in 19 buildings, most within three blocks, at rents far below the surrounding market.

Tom Angotti, who studied Cooper Square for the Lincoln Institute, concluded that its success depended on decades of neighborhood organizing and on support from city government, which greatly reduced its land and financing costs, and that it used public subsidies more effectively than other programs. Other urban examples include London CLT in England, Community Land Trust Brussels, Elevation CLT in Denver and the Douglass CLT in Washington, D.C.

Sources

• Tom Angotti, with Cecilia Jagu, “Community Land Trusts and Low-Income Multifamily Rental Housing: The Case of Cooper Square, New York City,” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2007).
• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapter 4. See Joint Publications.
• John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed and María E. Hernández-Torrales, eds., The Growth of Community Land Trusts in England and Europe (Terra Nostra Press, 2021).

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What makes multifamily housing harder for a CLT?

Several things. The standard CLT ground lease was written for a single household on its own lot, so leases for apartments, cooperatives and condominiums need changes, and so may the CLT’s membership rules and board. Financing can be harder: cooperatives need a blanket mortgage, which can be difficult to find in some parts of the United States, and Fannie Mae, for example, does not buy loans on cooperative units or on CLT buildings with three or four units.

Rental housing also needs ongoing management and, often, ongoing subsidy to stay affordable to people with very low incomes. Cooperatives need training and support for their boards. And larger buildings mean larger financial risks. Many CLTs meet these challenges by partnering with nonprofit developers, property managers and cooperative associations rather than doing everything themselves.

Sources

• John Emmeus Davis, “In Land We Trust: Key Features and Common Variations of Community Land Trusts in the USA,” in On Common Ground (Terra Nostra Press, 2020).
• Meagan M. Ehlenz, “Community Land Trusts and Limited Equity Cooperatives: A Marriage of Affordable Homeownership Models?” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2014).
• Fannie Mae, Community Land Trust Frequently Asked Questions (February 2026).
• John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapter 4. See Joint Publications.

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