Starting a community land trust

Frequently asked questions · 19 questions

Starting a community land trust

How to start a community land trust, step by step: the first decisions about purpose, people and place; legal structure, board and documents; land, staff and money; and the mistakes to avoid. Drawn mainly from John Emmeus Davis’s guide and other manuals on our site.

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How do I start a community land trust?

There is no single recipe. As John Emmeus Davis writes in his guide Starting a Community Land Trust: Organizational and Operational Choices, different communities have different conditions, priorities, politics and needs, so the right decisions in one place may not be right in another. But the list of decisions is mostly the same, and it starts with basic questions of why, who, where and when. The how comes later.

The work tends to follow a path. Most CLTs begin with an organizing committee: a small group of residents, nonprofit staff, public officials or others who study the model, decide what kind of CLT their community needs, and build support for it. The committee makes a set of fundamental decisions, drafts bylaws and recruits a founding board. Once the CLT is incorporated, the board takes on the tasks that let it begin acquiring land and selling or renting homes.

Preserving Affordable Homeownership, the Lincoln Institute’s 2024 report by John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, offers a checklist. The fundamental decisions are:

  • Beneficiaries. Who will the CLT serve?
  • Geography. Where will it operate?
  • Incorporation. Will it be a new, independent nonprofit, or a subsidiary or program of an existing organization?
  • Governance. Will it have the three-part board of the “classic” CLT, or a different structure?
  • Membership. Will it have members, and what roles will they play?
  • Projects. What types and tenures of housing will it develop, and will it hold land for other uses too?
  • Roles. Will it be mainly a steward of housing developed by others, or a developer as well?
  • Champions. Who will lead the effort and advocate for it?

The foundational tasks that follow include preparing bylaws, adopting a resale formula and adapting the model ground lease; recruiting the founding board; assessing public resources for land, development and staff; writing a three-year plan; reaching out to residents, nonprofits and businesses; building relationships with mortgage lenders; applying for tax exemption and meeting with local assessors; and preparing marketing, buyer selection and homebuyer education materials. The questions below take these in turn.

Much of this page reflects practice in the United States, where most of the guidance has been written. For other countries, see CLTs around the world and the answer on legal structure below.

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Why start a CLT, and what can it do for a community?

Start by being clear about the problem you want to solve, because the answer shapes every later decision. John Emmeus Davis describes the CLT as a “balanced property arrangement.” It balances the interests of the people who live in its homes with the interests of the wider community: affordability for today’s buyers with affordability for the next ones, security for individual owners with stability for the neighborhood, private wealth with public wealth.

In Starting a Community Land Trust, he lists the most common reasons communities give for starting one:

  • Developing communities without displacing people: revitalizing a neighborhood while making sure long-time residents can stay.
  • Keeping privately owned housing affordable for good, whether it was made affordable by subsidies, donations or inclusionary zoning.
  • Retaining the public’s investment: locking subsidies into the homes instead of losing them when the homes resell.
  • Protecting the occupancy, use and condition of affordable homes through the ground lease.
  • Assembling land for many kinds of development, from homes to shops, gardens and community buildings.
  • Helping people of modest means move up, from renting to owning, and to neighborhoods with better schools and jobs.
  • Backing up first-time homeowners, stepping in to prevent defaults and foreclosures.

Different reasons carry weight with different people. Public officials may care most about protecting subsidies, lenders about avoiding foreclosures, and neighborhood activists about community control. A strong case for a new CLT speaks to all of them. For more, see How CLTs keep homes affordable and Can CLTs do more than just housing?

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Do we have to follow the “classic” CLT model?

No, but it helps to know what it is and to decide deliberately where to depart from it. The “classic” CLT, as it developed in the United States and was written into federal law in 1992, has ten key features. John Emmeus Davis describes them in Starting a Community Land Trust: a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation; dual ownership, with the CLT owning the land and others owning the buildings; leased land, under long-term ground leases; perpetual affordability, enforced by the CLT’s option to buy back homes at a formula price; perpetual responsibility for the homes and their owners after the sale; an open, place-based membership; community control, with two-thirds of the board elected by and from residents and members; a three-part board; expansionist acquisition, aiming to keep growing rather than to complete a single project; and flexible development of many kinds of buildings and uses.

Most CLTs keep most of these features and adapt the most flexible ones, especially the resale formula and the kinds of projects, to local conditions. Others go further: they are started inside another nonprofit, serve a whole region, have no members, or structure their boards differently. What most organizations calling themselves CLTs keep, Davis writes, is a set of core commitments: stewardship of land, permanent affordability, lasting responsibility, a balanced structure of governance, and accountability to the people the CLT houses and the community around it.

Variations bring trade-offs. The membership and board are what make a CLT accountable to its residents and community. Preserving Affordable Homeownership also warns against changes pressed by funders or local governments, such as replacing the ground lease with deed covenants, recapturing subsidies at resale, or rewriting the model ground lease in ways that make mortgages harder to get. See CLT 101 for more on the model itself.

Sources

  • John Emmeus Davis, Starting a Community Land Trust: Organizational and Operational Choices (Burlington Associates, 2007), “The Diverse World of Community Land Trusts” and appendix A (federal definition).
  • 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 2. See Joint Publications.

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Who usually starts a CLT?

CLTs have been started by four kinds of sponsors: grassroots activists, as in Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Durham and Washington, D.C.; local governments, as in Burlington, Vermont, Portland, Oregon, and Chicago; existing nonprofit organizations, as in Albuquerque, Boston and Boulder; and occasionally employers, as in Rochester, Minnesota, and Jackson, Wyoming. Outside the United States, the starting point has also been villages (England), regional governments (Brussels) and residents of informal settlements (Puerto Rico and Brazil).

Whoever starts it, a CLT that lasts usually ends up with support from all of these: residents and community groups, government, other nonprofits, and local businesses and banks. The push often comes from one of them, and the others are recruited over time.

Local governments now play a bigger role than they once did. Burlington, Vermont, was the first city to fund a CLT from the start, appropriating $200,000 in 1984 for what is now the Champlain Housing Trust. Of the 115 CLTs consulted for Preserving Affordable Homeownership, 59 received some kind of help from local government in their early years. Cities including Long Beach, Louisville, Indianapolis and Jacksonville have recently committed funds to start new CLTs. Davis and King-Ries caution that a CLT started by government still needs the trust and participation of the community it serves. Where residents have been harmed by urban renewal or neglect, they may regard a CLT started by city hall with suspicion.

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Who will the CLT serve?

This is one of the first decisions, and John Emmeus Davis calls it a threshold decision because so much depends on it. Who the CLT serves will affect the type and tenure of housing it develops, how much subsidy each home needs, which government funds it can use, how its resale formula is designed, how it markets homes and chooses buyers, and how it frames its message to the community. The decision can change later, but it can’t be put off for long.

Davis frames the choice around three questions. First, how far down the income ladder should the CLT reach? Serving lower-income households requires more subsidy per home and more staff time to help owners keep their homes, and may meet opposition in wealthier neighborhoods. Serving higher-income households opens fewer public and charitable funding sources, can make it harder to obtain 501(c)(3) status, and may raise fears of displacement in lower-income neighborhoods.

Second, should homes stay affordable to households at the same income level each time they resell, or become more affordable over time? Maintaining affordability balances fairness to sellers and buyers. Increasing it favors future buyers, and can let a CLT stretch its subsidies further by serving slightly higher incomes on the first sale and lower incomes on later ones.

Third, should anything besides income count? Many CLTs give priority to people who already live or work in the area; some give priority to people with urgent needs, such as tenants who have been displaced. These choices can broaden support, but they must comply with fair housing laws, may limit government funding, and can work against opening up neighborhoods from which low-income people and people of color have long been excluded.

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Where will the CLT work?

A CLT is a place-based organization, so it needs a defined service area. That can be a single neighborhood, a city, a county or a whole region. When John Emmeus Davis wrote Starting a Community Land Trust in 2007, about a quarter of US CLTs served a single neighborhood and nearly 30 percent served one or more counties. In rural areas a regional service area is often a necessity, because no single town is large enough to draw the public funds a CLT needs.

Neighborhood CLTs, such as Dudley Neighbors Inc. in Boston or the Sawmill Community Land Trust in Albuquerque, usually see the CLT as a way to revitalize a particular place under residents’ control. Citywide CLTs, such as those in Chicago and Delray Beach, Florida, focus more on producing housing and preserving affordability throughout the city. Metropolitan CLTs, such as the Champlain Housing Trust, work across a city and its suburbs.

A larger area offers more choice for residents, a chance to open up suburbs that have excluded low-income families, more and cheaper land, a larger pool of buyers, broader support and easier fundraising. It also has costs. Scattered properties are harder to manage. Residents spread over a wide area find it harder to hold the CLT accountable, and the CLT can come to seem like a distant landlord. It may compete with other nonprofits for land and money. And community organizing and neighborhood development tend to take a back seat to housing production. Some CLTs start with one neighborhood and expand later.

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How do I build support for a new CLT?

A CLT needs a broad base of political, financial and professional support, so educating and recruiting allies is one of the most important early tasks. John Emmeus Davis describes three ways to go about it. Community organizing starts with a wide campaign of popular education, recruiting residents, churches, community groups, businesses and banks, and building the CLT from the bottom up. Core group organizing starts quietly with a small group of influential people who form an interim board, set up the organization and launch a first project, and then widen the base. Resource organizing starts by securing a commitment of land or money, which gives the effort credibility and pays for staff to organize.

Davis names five groups that deserve special attention in the early days: the residents, congregations and businesses of the CLT’s service area, from whom it will draw its members and most of its board; other nonprofits serving the same people, which may become partners or see the CLT as a competitor; government agencies that fund, regulate and tax housing, including the local assessor and the state housing finance agency; lenders and donors; and professionals such as attorneys, appraisers and real estate brokers, who need to understand how a CLT home is bought and resold.

Each has advantages and risks, and many CLTs combine them. Whatever the route, the people the CLT is meant to serve need a real voice from the start. See Starting a Community Land Trust: Organizational and Operational Choices.

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It depends on the country. In the United States, most CLTs are independent nonprofit corporations with tax-exempt status, and some are programs within an existing nonprofit. Other countries use community benefit societies, cooperatives, foundations, associations, or a form created by national law, such as France’s organisme de foncier solidaire or the Puerto Rico law that created the Caño Martín Peña CLT.

Anyone starting a CLT should work with a lawyer who knows local real estate and nonprofit law. Our Resources for CLT Attorneys and US State Law Database are a good place to start, and the American Bar Association’s A Community Land Trust Digest (2026) is written for U.S. attorneys.

In the United States, the usual path is to incorporate as a nonprofit under state law, adopt bylaws, and apply to the IRS for tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3). The application cannot be filed immediately, because it needs operating budgets and a program description that come out of the CLT’s planning. The CLT Technical Manual includes model bylaws for a “classic” CLT, with its membership and three-part board, along with the model ground lease. In Scotland, community landowners are usually companies limited by guarantee; in England and Wales, the 2008 legal definition of a CLT can be met by several kinds of corporate body, as long as it is controlled by and serves its local community.

Two US details are worth knowing early. A CLT that targets households with higher incomes may find it harder to obtain 501(c)(3) status, because the IRS requires a charitable purpose, such as housing low-income people or combating community deterioration. And under a 1992 amendment to federal housing law, a new CLT can be designated a Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO), eligible for HOME program funds, without the track record other nonprofits need.

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How should the board and membership be set up?

In the classic CLT, anyone living on the CLT’s land automatically becomes a member, and any adult living in the service area can join by supporting the CLT’s purposes and paying a small fee. The board has three equal parts: one third elected by the members who lease land from the CLT, one third elected by the other members, and one third representing the public interest, nominated by the board and approved by the members. Model bylaws for this structure are in the CLT Technical Manual.

Many CLTs adapt it. Some let organizations such as churches and nonprofits become members; some, especially programs inside another nonprofit, have no members of their own. Some reserve seats within the leaseholder third for renters, co-op members and homeowners, or within the public third for local officials, lenders or other institutions. In some, an outside body appoints part of the board. In Boston, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative appoints a majority of the board of its CLT, Dudley Neighbors Inc.

A new CLT doesn’t have to start with its permanent structure. Davis describes transition boards, in which a sponsor appoints most seats at first and hands them to elected members over several years. When Northwest Housing Alternatives started the Clackamas County Community Land Trust in Oregon, it appointed two-thirds of the board, then gave up control over five years until it appointed only two members. The Technical Manual describes a similar bridge: the initial directors named at incorporation adopt the bylaws, call the first membership meeting and present a slate for the first elected board.

Questions to settle include how to keep the CLT accountable to its community, whether homeowners scattered across a wide area will feel connected enough to elect their own representatives, which public officials or funders (if any) should sit on the board and whether that creates conflicts of interest, and when a sponsor should step back. See also Who runs a CLT?

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Can an existing nonprofit start a CLT program?

Yes. Many CLTs began as programs of community development corporations, housing nonprofits or neighborhood organizations; in Albuquerque, Boston and Boulder, for example, existing nonprofits were the main sponsors. A host organization brings staff, funding and a track record, which can save years.

The trade-off is governance. A CLT program needs to keep its commitment to permanent affordability and give residents and the wider community a real voice, even inside a larger organization. Many start as programs and later become independent.

John Emmeus Davis notes that this happens most where many nonprofit housing groups already exist: it can be more practical to start a CLT inside an existing organization than to create a new one from scratch. Boston’s Dudley Neighbors Inc. is a subsidiary of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative; the Central Ohio CLT was set up inside the Franklin County Land Bank. Some CLT programs stay part of their host for good; others are spun off as independent organizations once they can stand on their own. Of the CLTs that contributed to Preserving Affordable Homeownership, a dozen operate inside another organization, either a community development corporation or a Habitat for Humanity affiliate. Local governments sometimes fund this route: Blacksburg and Montgomery County, Virginia, established the New River Home Trust as a subsidiary of Community Housing Partners, and Sheridan, Wyoming, helped the local Habitat affiliate start a CLT (see CLTs and Habitat for Humanity).

He also names the risk. Where a CLT program is grafted onto a development organization, or started by a city, there has sometimes been a tendency to dilute or drop the membership and board features that make a CLT accountable to lower-income residents. The most successful CLTs, he writes, find a sustainable balance between the CLT as developer and the CLT as organizer.

Sources

  • John Emmeus Davis, Starting a Community Land Trust: Organizational and Operational Choices (Burlington Associates, 2007).
  • Ruoniu (Vince) Wang and others, “The 2022 Census of Community Land Trusts and Shared Equity Entities in the United States,” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper (2023). Covers shared equity programs generally, not only CLTs.
  • 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), chapters 2 and 8. See Joint Publications.

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How will a new CLT get land and homes?

Developing on CLT land is much like any other development. What differs is how the land comes to the CLT and who takes the lead. John Emmeus Davis describes seven methods:

  • CLT-initiated development. The CLT plans and oversees projects itself, hiring architects and builders, then sells the homes and leases the land. Most CLTs eventually become active developers.
  • Buyer-initiated acquisition. An income-eligible buyer, pre-qualified for a mortgage and for the CLT’s subsidy, finds a house on the open market. At closing, the CLT buys the land, the buyer buys the house, and the two sign a ground lease.
  • Developer-initiated projects. A nonprofit or for-profit developer proposes to build on land the CLT owns or will own, and takes most of the risk.
  • Stewardship projects. The CLT acquires and leases land and preserves affordability, while partners do all the development.
  • Municipally initiated projects. A city conveys land to the CLT for a project it wants built.
  • Inclusionary units. Homes that private developers must provide under inclusionary zoning, or in return for density bonuses and other concessions, are placed in the CLT’s care.
  • Public housing property. A housing authority conveys land to the CLT, as the Teton County Housing Authority did for the Jackson Hole Community Land Trust in Wyoming.

Donations matter too, especially at first. CLTs have received surplus city land, tax-foreclosed lots, a former firehouse, houses moved from college campuses, bank-owned properties and church land. Others have used bargain sales, in which an owner sells below appraised value and claims the difference as a charitable gift, or equity gifts, in which an owner pledges part of the gain from a future sale. Davis warns against accepting every gift: an old building that needs costly repairs or contains lead or asbestos can cost more than it is worth.

Local government is often the biggest source of early land and money. Among the CLTs consulted for Preserving Affordable Homeownership, funding for a first project was the most common kind of help from local government, cited by nearly a third; about one in six received donated public land or buildings.

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Should a new CLT build homes itself?

Not necessarily. Some CLTs decide from the start to concentrate on stewardship: acquiring land, leasing it and keeping homes affordable, while partner organizations do the building. Others begin as stewards and take on development once they have the capacity; the Portland Community Land Trust in Oregon followed that path. A few avoid development for good, because their community already has plenty of nonprofit developers. Habitat for Humanity affiliates are a common development partner (see CLTs and Habitat for Humanity).

John Emmeus Davis suggests questions to answer before taking on development. Does the CLT have staff who can plan, finance and oversee construction? Does it have the money and resilience to absorb the risks? Will it have a marketing plan in hand before breaking ground, or at least before the project is half built?

Staying out of development has costs too. A CLT that does no development gives up development fees, which many CLTs rely on for operating income, so it must find other support, such as fees for counseling buyers, marketing homes and managing resales. It also needs clear agreements with its partners: who chooses which land to buy, who decides what gets built on it, how costs and risks are shared, whether agreements are made project by project or for several years, and whether the partner is fully committed to the CLT model or will keep selling homes that compete with it.

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What documents and policies does a new CLT need?

The core documents are the bylaws, the ground lease and the resale formula. In the United States, most CLTs start from the 2011 CLT Network Model Ground Lease in the CLT Technical Manual, now maintained by Grounded Solutions Network. The lease has been refined over many years with lenders and is accepted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so changing its key provisions can make mortgages harder to get. CLTs still adapt many details to local needs, but Preserving Affordable Homeownership advises against rewriting the lease to suit a funder’s or a city’s preferences.

The resale formula, which sets the price at which a homeowner can sell, deserves particular care, because it will govern every resale of every home for decades. The Technical Manual devotes a chapter to designing one, and another to setting the first sale price, which becomes the base for every later resale. See also How CLTs keep homes affordable.

A CLT also needs policies and materials for its everyday work: marketing homes and selecting buyers, educating buyers and disclosing the terms of the ground lease, approving mortgages and refinancing, monitoring occupancy and repairs, handling resales, and helping owners who fall behind. Grounded Solutions Network’s Stewardship Policies and Procedures Template Manual offers a starting point. Lenders, appraisers and attorneys will need to understand these documents too, so educating them is part of the work.

Sources

  • Kirby White, ed., The CLT Technical Manual (National Community Land Trust Network, 2011), chapters 5-A, 11-A, 12, 18, 21 and 23. See Manuals and Guides.
  • Grounded Solutions Network, Model Ground Leases: the 2011 CLT Network Model Ground Lease and Commentary. The same page lists the Startup Community Land Trust Hub and the Stewardship Policies and Procedures Template Manual.
  • John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapter 2. See Joint Publications.

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What happens once the CLT is incorporated?

The CLT Technical Manual describes the first steps. The initial directors named in the articles of incorporation are a bridge to the permanent board. In a classic CLT, they adopt the bylaws, schedule the first annual meeting of members, and present a slate of candidates for the first elected board. It is wise to draw many nominees from the organizing committee, for continuity, while recruiting others who bring missing perspectives or skills.

The new board elects officers, sets up committees (typically for staffing and finance, the resale formula and ground lease, program planning, and outreach and fundraising) and orients members who were not part of the organizing committee. Meanwhile the CLT needs the basic infrastructure of any nonprofit: an employer identification number, a bank account, and an accounting system set up with an accountant who knows nonprofit housing, since the CLT will soon be buying land, selling homes while keeping the land, and managing restricted grants and loans. It also needs a balanced first-year budget, and personnel policies before it hires anyone.

The application for 501(c)(3) status can’t be filed right away, because it requires operating budgets and a program description that come out of the CLT’s planning. Once it is approved, the CLT can usually seek exemption from state and local sales taxes. CLTs don’t usually seek property tax exemptions for their homes, but they should meet early with local assessors so that resale-restricted homes are not taxed as if they could be sold at market value.

Sources

  • Kirby White, ed., The CLT Technical Manual (National Community Land Trust Network, 2011), chapters 6, 7 and 17. See Manuals and Guides.
  • John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2024), chapters 2 and 6. See Joint Publications.

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Does a new CLT need staff?

Sooner or later, yes. Some CLTs begin with volunteers, but the CLT Technical Manual notes that staff are needed to run even a modest program, and that nothing is more important than the quality of the first hire. An organization whose first employee doesn’t work out loses spirit, credibility and momentum.

A new CLT has to decide whether its first hire should be an executive director, or an administrator with more limited duties. The Technical Manual calls the second approach safer and less costly, while noting that the most successful organizations were often those that hired a strong executive director at the outset. For an executive director, it looks for a strong commitment to the CLT model and shared equity homeownership, nonprofit management experience, the ability to write and speak persuasively, an understanding of finance, and familiarity with local housing programs and government.

How many staff a CLT needs depends on what it chooses to do. John Emmeus Davis notes that some CLTs manage well with three people, while others need a dozen or more. Some new CLTs are staffed for their first years by a sponsoring nonprofit or even by city employees. Whatever the arrangement, stewardship never stops: a CLT can pause development while it waits for new opportunities, but not the work of managing land, monitoring leases and handling resales.

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How do we pay for starting a CLT?

A CLT needs two kinds of money: project funding, to acquire land and build or repair homes, and operating funding, to pay for staff and stewardship. Project funding is much the same as for any nonprofit housing developer. In the United States, CLTs have used federal CDBG and HOME funds, state and local housing trust funds, Federal Home Loan Bank grants, tax credits for rental projects, donated land and private loans.

Operating funds come from local government (often through CDBG or HOME), foundations, banks and businesses, individual donors and members, special events, and the CLT’s own earnings from development fees, lease fees and resale fees. A large, mature CLT can come close to covering its stewardship costs from its own fees; a new one cannot. John Emmeus Davis observes that it takes about three years for a new CLT to establish itself, and that the most successful start-ups have had at least three years of operating funding in hand before launching, or three years of staff and support from a sponsoring organization.

He also notes common mistakes by funders. A CLT works best when it owns its land free of debt, so grants to the CLT for land do more than loans to individual buyers that must be repaid. Some funders assume that buying the land is all the subsidy needed, when serving very low-income families also requires subsidies for the building. Some cities undercut their own CLT by offering the same down payment assistance, with no resale restrictions, to buyers of similar homes nearby. And foundations drawn to a CLT because it is new may move on to the next new thing before the CLT is established.

For more, see How are CLTs funded?

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How long does it take, and what does it cost?

In John Emmeus Davis’s words, “it all depends on the choices you make.” Some groups move quickly; others take years educating their community and lining up funding before their first project. Going slow is often a good thing, because groups that rush to incorporate and build often neglect how the CLT itself should be organized. But groups that deliberate forever never acquire enough land to make a difference. The challenge is to be careful and inclusive without getting stuck. Once a CLT is incorporated, Davis’s experience is that it takes about three years to establish itself in its community.

Costs vary widely with land prices, the incomes the CLT serves and the kinds of projects it takes on. A common pattern is a modest grant for organizing and planning, followed by funding for land and buildings raised project by project; paying for ongoing operations is often the harder part. In recent years, local governments have committed amounts ranging from $250,000 in operating funds (Jacksonville, Florida) to $1.5 million (Louisville, Kentucky, and Indianapolis) to start new CLTs. See the questions above on funding and staff.

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What mistakes should a new CLT avoid?

The guides cited on this page point to several recurring problems:

  • Rushing, or never deciding. Groups that rush to incorporate and build often neglect how the CLT itself should be organized. Groups that deliberate forever never acquire enough land to make a difference.
  • Leaving the community out. A CLT started by a city or a nonprofit without involving the residents of its service area may never win their trust. Preserving Affordable Homeownership calls participation from the very beginning a best practice.
  • Watering down the model. Under pressure from funders or officials, some CLTs have given up leasing land, accepted subsidy recapture, or rewritten the model ground lease in ways that made mortgages harder to get.
  • Dropping the features that make a CLT accountable. Davis notes a tendency, when CLTs are grafted onto development organizations or started by cities, to dilute or drop the membership and the board that answer to lower-income residents.
  • Starting without enough operating money. Plan for about three years.
  • Accepting the wrong gifts. A free building can cost more to fix than it is worth.
  • Neglecting stewardship. A CLT stays responsible for its homes and homeowners as long as it owns the land. The policies, staff and money to do that have to be in place by the first sale.
  • Forgetting the professionals. Lenders, appraisers, attorneys and real estate brokers who don’t understand the CLT model can stall sales and resales.

Sources

  • John Emmeus Davis, Starting a Community Land Trust: Organizational and Operational Choices (Burlington Associates, 2007), Foreword, “Funding” and “Special Topics”.
  • 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 2. See Joint Publications.

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Where can I find training, guides and examples?

Start with John Emmeus Davis’s Starting a Community Land Trust: Organizational and Operational Choices, then the other guides on our Manuals and Guides page, including the CLT Technical Manual, a guide for local governments, and manuals from Australia and Europe. Our Case Studies, Video Library and recordings of past webinars show how others have done it.

National CLT Networks offer training, conferences and peer support. For deeper reading, Terra Nostra Press publishes books on CLT practice around the world, starting with On Common Ground. And the CLT LibrarianAI, our AI assistant, can answer questions about CLTs from our library.

Grounded Solutions Network, the U.S. national network, offers further tools for new CLTs on its website, including a six-part Startup Community Land Trust Hub with a decision worksheet, a Stewardship Policies and Procedures Template Manual that CLTs can adapt, and its model ground lease.

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More questions about community land trusts? See all frequently asked questions, or ask the CLT LibrarianAI, our AI assistant.