Part 3. Justice Through a Commons-Based Approach to Land
Scaling up CLTs: bringing in the public powers, growing with community in mind
In June 2025, Community Land Trust (CLT) practitioners from across the world gathered in Dublin for a session organized by the European CLT Network in collaboration with the International Center for CLTs during the International Social Housing Festival.
"Justice through a commons-based approach to land" was the topic that set the tone for all panelists in describing how they work, their journey, and their challenges. It is also the principle that guides all CLTs, however diverse they are. From the US civil rights era to their evolution into a replicable, adaptable, strategic innovation, CLTs have embedded this idea of separating land ownership from homeownership as a way to secure the right to housing. Permanent by design, it is this commons-based, justice-oriented vision that underscores the growing success of Community Land Trusts worldwide.
CLTs originated as a tool for political justice and reparation, and while their political action remains central to their development, the stability of the democratic, typically tripartite governance model is what truly enables them to remain inclusive and permanently affordable even through changes in geography and scale. From Ireland to the US, from the UK to Catalonia Spain, social learning and innovation have guided their equitable expansion, balanced with a careful eye on institutionalization and staying true to the roots of the model.
But at a time when the housing crisis is on the cover of newspapers everywhere, a pressing question remains: how can CLTs reconcile the need for scaling and their commitment to democratic governance?
Throughout the panel discussion, a fundamental question crystallized at the heart of the community land trust movement: how can grassroots initiatives scale without sacrificing the community organising principles that give them their strength? This balancing act between bottom-up democracy and the institutional support needed to become a mainstream housing option, has become one of the defining challenges for CLTs worldwide.
The Barcelona Example
Barcelona offers a compelling case study of successful institutionalization and community power working hand in hand. Projects like La Borda or cooperative Sostre Cívic are internationally recognized as pioneering examples of what becomes possible when community vision meets institutional resources. The city's evolution from supporting individual community-funded projects to developing comprehensive policy frameworks illustrates how government backing can stabilise and expand CLT development. The current ESAL agreement which allows for long-term land leases of municipal land and an alliance with cooperative housing entities to create housing in Barcelona, represents the kind of systematic support that can transform scattered initiatives into a significant housing alternative.
Yet this institutionalization process seems to sit uneasily with CLTs' origins, emerging from grassroots democracy, direct action, and community self-determination—and these values can appear contradictory to the requirements of government partnerships and institutional frameworks. Some may worry that the formalization that enables scale and stability could simultaneously threaten the participatory governance and local control that make CLTs distinctive. As Adrià Gracia i Mateu of XES put it:
“The public sector is not enough, we need community, and we need both of them.”
Far from undermining grassroots energy, Barcelona demonstrates that institutional partnerships can extend the reach of community-led models when designed in ways that respect and reinforce local autonomy.
La Borda, Barcelona © Frank Kaltenbach
Scale, Community, and Equity
The panel grappled with this central question: can projects scale and bring more housing units while retaining their community core and maintaining equity between members? Governance emerged as the most challenging aspect. Greater efficiency demands and financial deadlines from real estate development and institutional funding can strain the participatory balance at the heart of CLTs—sometimes leading to increased reliance on external experts.
Yet practitioners agreed that government support is not a threat to community power but a necessary complement to it. The success story of Champlain Housing Trust in Burlington, Vermont illustrates this dynamic. As Brenda Torpy explained, the CLT's 40-year partnership with the city began with initial operating funding, loan capital, and staffing support that proved essential to its development. Crucially, this political institutionalization occurred outside City Hall, enabling the organization to endure through subsequent political changes.
"The city provided initial operating funding, loan capital and staffing from the Community Development Office," Torpy noted. "This launched the partnership between the city and the Community Land Trust, which was then Burlington Community Land Trust, now Champlain. That has lasted 40 years."
The Role of Community Organising
Juliet Can's experience with London CLT reinforced this lesson, highlighting the essential role of activism in pushing institutional forces toward recognition and support.
Her journey as a Ugandan immigrant and her fight to “to build something that was permanent, affordable and sustainable” demonstrated how community organising remains foundational, even as projects seek institutional backing. The inspiration drawn from meeting with other community land trusts practitioners in the US at that time led to a crucial insight: successful CLTs require political support, land access, investment, policy reforms, and institutional partnerships from mortgage companies and other financial actors.
Juliet Can reminded the audience of the words of Neil Jamieson, founder of TELCO (now Citizens UK), after his US visit:
"We can do this, but what we need is political support, we need investment, we need policy reforms, and we need institutions like mortgage companies to come on this journey."
After more than 20 years of campaigning in London, activists finally secured a breakthrough: the Greater London Authority offered TELCO a site in east London at St Clements, a disused hospital. This milestone showed that institutional involvement did not diminish grassroots power—it was the direct result of it.
Mainstreaming CLTs: The Path Forward
The types of political and institutional backing are multiple, and span land provision, subsidies, and policy frameworks. Regardless of the form or extent of public support, the practitioners in the panel emphasized protecting community organising as the foundational component to achieve justice that cannot be compromised.
This raises the movement's ultimate question: if activism and community organising remain central to CLT identity, can these models become mainstream housing options? France, for example, made the choice of institutionalization: the OFS/BRS system relies on institutions only for the benefit of multiplication of the housing offer, and consequently projects to offer over 20,000 homes by 2028.
The answer may lie in what makes CLTs unique, and their ongoing balance between palpable grassroots foundations, and strong replicability potential. Rather than choosing between community control and institutional support, CLTs as housing models are able to maintain this dynamic balance using institutional resources to amplify community power, not replace it.
The path forward requires embracing this paradox. CLTs must institutionalize to scale, but they can—and must—do so in ways that deepen, rather than dilute, community empowerment. The panel suggested that this balance, while challenging, may be precisely what makes the CLT model both authentic and scalable: rooted in grassroots justice, yet adaptable enough to reshape housing systems on a larger stage.
The European Community Land Trust is actively researching how CLTs achieve stability and scale through partnerships to better serve and empower communities through their unique approach. Community-Led Place Stewardship analyzes the mutually-beneficial partnerships that CLTs and developers can create to deliver large scale (re)developments, incorporating permanent affordability and community control. ECLTN’s first Impact Report, publication forthcoming at the end of October, highlights paths forward with a broad range of partners, including local, regional, and national governments, the EU, housing associations and social housing providers, and funders.
The Preserving Affordable Homeownership report, available now in both English and Spanish, published by the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy based on research by the International Center for Community Land Trusts, details how CLTs in the United States are partnering with municipalities to help address the housing affordability crisis. Highlighting what works, what doesn’t work, and best-practice case studies, the report is an excellent resource for CLTs and public officials. A complementary publication, International Commentaries on Preserving Affordable Housing describes experiences and evolving projects from Australia, Canada, Brazil, Europe, and France and shares insights on what those experiences and projects have in common with—and how they differ from—CLTs in the United States.
The 2023 State of the Sector report from the National Community Land Trust Network of England and Wales documents a path to building 278,000 CLT homes through diverse mutually-supportive partnerships.
