What is a Community Land Trust, Bottom up Development and Community Organising? What do we mean by Community Ownership or Living Rent?
Community Land Trusts (CLTs)
Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are a type of organisation where ordinary people can own land and buildings (assets) together, for the benefit of their own community:
- offering affordable rent and security of tenure
- can’t sell their land for a profit, so their land and buildings stay in the community, forever
- have their roots in – and still do – community organising work
The assets that the CLT owns are said to be in “community ownership”.
Community Ownership
Community ownership land and buildings (assets) are owned by the community.
Because the community own the assets, the community get to make decisions about the them. These decisions are usually based on shared principles and aims, for example, making sure:
- open spaces are available for everyone to enjoy
- homes and work spaces are pleasant and affordable
- money raised from rent gets put back into the community
Community Land Trusts are a type of community ownership.
Community Organising
A community is a group of people with things in common, e.g.
people who live in the same town or estate, support the same football team or share the same culture.
Community organising is a way for the community to identify
shared goals and find ways to achieve them together.
This is a type of ‘bottom up development’.
Community Land Trusts do community organising work to help
the community get and look after land and buildings (assets).
Bottom up Development/ BUD
BUD is a type of community organising and regeneration done
by and for the community.
In ‘bottom up development’ the community says what the
problems are and works towards there own solutions.
BUD matters because ‘traditional’ top down regeneration has a reputation for not listening and for focusing on short term or
capital projects that don’t help communities.
Examples include community managed green spaces, growing and food projects, libraries and repair cafes
Affordable Rent and Living Rent
The government calls rent affordable when it is 20% less than market rent:
If a 1 bed flat costs £1000 a month, they can call a flat that costs £800 a month “affordable”. If market rent goes up, so can “affordable” rent, even if wages stay the same.
A fairer system is “Living Rent”.
Living Rent is based on local income and capped so it won’t increase beyond inflation. Heart of Hastings and White Rock Neighbourhood Ventures use a Living Rents model for their homes