community land trusts

A coalition of 113 community and affordable housing groups delivered a letter to New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Mayor Eric Adams, urging them to take bold and immediate action to address the city’s affordability crisis. Citing the state’s failure to strengthen tenant protections or pass other housing justice measures in the recent budget, the letter calls on City leaders to enact the Community Land Act – a set of bills to bring land and housing into permanently-affordable community control, through community land trusts (CLTs) and other nonprofit social housing models.

The undersigned 113 organizations call on you to enact the Community Land Act, an urgently-needed set of bills that gives community land trusts (CLTs) and other nonprofits tools to develop and preserve permanently-affordable housing, community and commercial space, and other neighborhood assets. By taking land off the speculative market, CLTs protect public investment in affordable housing and maintain affordability over generations.

NYN Media — With over half of New York City tenants spending nearly a third of their income on rent, affordable housing is crucial to ensuring a safe future for New Yorkers. That’s why advocates in have rallied and thrown their support behind the Community Land Act, a package of bills before the New York City Council that would provide nonprofits and community land trusts with the resources to develop permanently affordable housing. Community land trusts hold land under community control, thus guaranteeing the community derives benefits from it. Spearheading this campaign is the NYC Community Land Initiative, a coalition of housing organizations trying to expand social housing. 

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Over the past fifteen years, New York City’s CLT movement has grown significantly. Amidst the city’s growing housing affordability and homelessness crises, several grassroots movements coalesced around CLTs. We collaborated with the Pratt Center for Community Development to showcase the powerful and growing movement for CLTs in NYC.

The Community Land Act is a bold legislative package that will give CLTs and other nonprofits tools to acquire land for permanently affordable social housing, affordable commercial and community spaces, and other critical needs. We urge the Committee and Council to pass the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, or COPA (Int. 196), Public Land for Public Good (Int. 637), and Resolution 38 in support of the NYS Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, or TOPA.