A community land trust (CLT) is a nonprofit, community-based organization that works to provide perpetually affordable home ownership opportunities.
The CLT acquires land and removes it from the speculative, for-profit, real estate market. The CLT then holds the land it owns “in trust” forever for the benefit of the community by ensuring that it will always remain affordable for homebuyers.
This fosters “perpetually affordable” ownership of the home.
CLT’s provide permanently affordable housing by owning the land of a particular property but selling the home on the land to an income-qualified buyer. The homeowner then leases the land from the CLT through a 99-year, renewable ground lease.
The ground lease connects the homeowner to the community and to keeping the house permanently affordable by including a resale formula that determines the home’s CLT sale price and the homeowner’s share of the home’s increased value at the time of sale.
This mechanism enables the retention of the initial investment made in the home, by public and private sources, making it affordable to subsequent, income-qualified buyers