Working the urban landscape:
From the NYC Community Land Initiative:
Expanding Community Land Trusts in New York City is a big and complex goal, so we have broken into groups to work on different pieces of the puzzle.
EDUCATION & OUTREACH
The housing crisis is big, and the community land trust model is complex, so this work group is focused on creating and sharing popular-education materials that will help us facilitate discussion around these ideas with various audiences. We’re also focused on identifying new organizations and individuals that should be part of the conversation; identifying self-interest and working collaboratively with them to create CLTs that meet the needs of diverse communities.
POLICY & LEGISLATION
Community land trusts allow for grassroots development led by directly-impacted communities, but government still has a role to play. What policies and laws need to be changed to facilitate the creation and expansion of community land trusts? What new policies and laws are needed? P&L is focused on understanding the policy/legislative landscape, clarifying our goals, translating them into legislative language, and developing a strategy. This workgroup will also focus on the involvement of elected officials and city agency heads, as well as other powerful potential allies.
EAST HARLEM/EL BARRIO CLT
While we focus on big-picture work like popular education and changing laws and policies, this is not an abstract conversation. This work group has developed a detailed scenario for how a neighborhood-based community land trust could be established in East Harlem/El Barrio that utilizes a mix of vacant and occupied property. This group is working closely with Education & Outreach to discuss this scenario with interested residents and to develop a demonstration project. We are also working to develop a case-study planning tool that other groups and neighborhoods can use to replicate our process.
