Our Bronx. Our Land.
In January 2020, the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition formally incorporated the Bronx Community Land Trust!
Who is the Bronx CLT?
The Bronx Community Land Trust (Bronx CLT) works to build and preserve safe, healthy, and deeply affordable housing for the borough’s racially and economically diverse residents as well as accessible commercial, industrial, and green spaces. The Bronx CLT advances community leadership, shared wealth, and collective governance over our Bronx land to create long-term sustainability, responsible planning, and equitable development that prevents displacement and gentrification.
What is a community land trust or CLT?
A CLT is a community-led organization that owns land. It separates ownership of the land from the buildings and other uses above it--be it housing, a business, even a community garden. The CLT pulls the land permanently off the market, and becomes responsible for putting that land to use for the benefit of the people who live in the area. A CLT is a way for organized communities to manage land collectively with the goal of ensuring equitable and permanently affordable development for the community.
Why do we need a CLT?
For over four decades, NWBCCC has been fighting back the tide of disinvestment and displacement in our working-class, immigrant, Black and brown communities. Today, our people remain poor and disenfranchised from the decision-making processes and economic institutions that impact the future of the Bronx.
Our members founded the Bronx CLT through research, visioning, and building leadership to address these pressures and the realities of low wage jobs, unaffordable rents, and rising evictions. The land trust is a fight-forward model that shifts the conversation from simply organizing to keep tenants in their homes and businesses to also creating opportunities for community members to collectively own and make decisions over their buildings, storefronts, green spaces, and more in order to meet our community’s needs.
CLT Campaign
The Bronx CLT, NWBCCC, and local residents have launched our first campaign! We have identified 26 city-owned lots in the Bronx and are demanding the City gives the CLT the land for free.
Our campaign demands are:
New York City will give the Bronx CLT the land that they own in the Bronx for free. (By NYC we mean HPD, Neighborhood Restore and DCAS, first and foremost)
NYC will provide access to financing to purchase land and build or rehab buildings
Where properties owned by target agencies have been offered to a private developer, NYC must give that land to the Bronx Land Trust Initiative
Community planning and vision will take precedence over governmental control
The Bronx Land Trust Initiative will set its own affordability metrics
How do I learn more and get involved in the CLT?
Read the Bronx CLT report published by the NWBCCC and the Bronx CLT in 2020. To get involved, contact: bronxCLT@northwestbronx.org
For more information on Community Land Trusts and the growing movement in the Bronx and beyond, go to nyccli.org
