community land trusts

Next City — Marcus is a disabled, 66 year-old Vietnam war veteran. He lives in a house in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn that has been in his family since the 1960’s. An only child, he inherited the home when his parents passed, his only piece of generational wealth. But after falling behind on property taxes, the city placed an $11,000 lien on his home. That lien will be sold to a third party, making the debt nearly impossible to pay off.

Ahead of the City’s tax lien sale this Friday, the Abolish the NYC Tax Lien Sale Coalition released a new analysis revealing the lien sale list includes 392 vacant lots that could support the development of over 3,600 affordable housing units. This represents a recurring missed opportunity for the City to partner with community land trusts (CLTs) to acquire these vacant lots and develop deeply-affordable housing for low-income New Yorkers, the organization said. 

New York City’s housing and land use policies have contributed to neighborhood segregation, displacement of BIPOC New Yorkers, racial health disparities, widening wealth inequality, and a host of other inequities. New York City’s charter must be reformed to repair past harms, by giving Black and brown communities meaningful opportunities to own and control land, housing and neighborhood development.

This afternoon the NYS Community Equity Agenda, a coalition of more than 40 community, labor, and civil rights groups, cooperative organizations, and community development financial institutions from across New York, released its policy priorities for 2022.

Last Saturday, the local community land trust (CLT) movement joined together for a three-borough day of action, with one united message: New York City must keep Public Land in Public Hands. At community actions in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, groups pointed to vacant and underused City-owned land in their neighborhoods, and called on the City to transfer these sites to CLTs for permanently-affordable housing and community-controlled development.

New York City is doubling down on a bold strategy to advance community ownership of land and housing in NYC’s Black, brown and immigrant communities. This year, the City Council awarded $1.5 million to support community land trust (CLT) organizing across the five boroughs—its largest allocation since launching the Citywide CLT Initiative in 2019.

The 20 undersigned organizations are pleased to respond to New York City’s Shared Equity Request for Information (RFI). We believe that New York City should be a beacon for cooperative economics, advancing racial and gender equity and community-led development. Our organizations include cooperatives and community land trusts, as well as grassroots and member-led groups that have developed these and other shared equity strategies in Black, brown, and immigrant communities. Also included are organizations that provide critical financing, legal assistance, training and other support to community-led initiatives.