International Center for Community Land Trusts -

International Center for Community Land Trusts

We are a not-for-profit nongovernmental organization established in 2018 to promote and to support community land trusts and similar strategies of community-led development on community-owned land in countries throughout the world.

Photo of Grupo Esperança community and the Favela-CLT Project (Catalytic Communities, Brazil)

Just Released!

Book cover for Preserving Affordable Homeownership

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has released a new Policy Focus Report, Preserving Affordable Homeownership: Municipal Partnerships with Community Land Trusts, by John Emmeus Davis and Kristin King-Ries of the International Center for Community Land Trusts.

Drawing on insights from 115 community land trusts (CLTs) that were interviewed or surveyed by the International Center for Community Land Trusts, the report explores how CLTs are partnering with public officials to help address the housing affordability crisis. In this innovative model, individuals buy homes on land that is leased from a local CLT and agree to limit the resale price, reducing the upfront cost of homeownership and keeping those homes affordable for one income-qualified household after another.

Preserving Affordable Homeownership builds on the Lincoln Institute’s 2008 Policy Focus Report The City-CLT Partnership, coauthored by Davis and Rick Jacobus.

Read the Press Release

CLTs in the News

Midwest Community Land Trust Conference Recap, Detroit Justice Center, October 17, 2024
Africatown Community Land Trust Celebrates the Opening of Africatown Plaza, a New Affordable Housing Building, Lauryn Bray, South Seattle Emerald, October 8, 2024
Kīpuka Kuleana: restoring relationships to place and strengthening climate adaptation through a community-based land trust, Sarah Barger et al, Frontiers in Sustainability, September 24, 2024
A Seattle home for under $300,000? Yes, but with some strings attached, Jessica Fu, The Seattle Times, September 22, 2024
A plot of land in Southern California could be a game-changer for the housing crisis: Factory-built housing, ADUs, and community land trusts — all at once. Rachel Cohen, Vox, September 12, 2024
Sacramento Community Land Trust acquires its first property, Kate Wolffe, CapRadio, August 19, 2024
The Black History of the Community Land Trust Model, Rondo Community Land Trust, April 29, 2024

Terra Nostra Press

Terra Nostra Press publishes books, monographs, and manuals in support of the CLT Center’s work. These publications showcase the theory and practice of community land trusts, along with the stories of reflective practitioners from around the world who are laying the foundation for an international CLT movement.

CLT Map + Directory

We curate the definitive global map and directory of community land trusts.

Resource Library

We have the most extensive collection of materials about community land trusts in the world. You can find how-to guides, academic papers, case studies, interviews with leading practitioners, as well as information about the history of the global CLT movement.

What Is a CLT?

This page will help you get started on your journey of learning about community land trusts.