6 Groundbreaking Community Land Trusts and Housing Co-ops from Around the World

As was covered in an earlier article on Community Land Trusts (CLTs) on RioOnWatch, market-rate housing by definition does not meet the affordability demands of the bottom socio-economic tier (normally 20-30 percent) of a city’s population, so transferring favela housing to the formal market will not address the needs of that group — it will only displace them, causing new favelas to form. We have thus been exploring alternative options to individual titling for guaranteeing long-term affordable housing and tenure to favela residents.

Community Land Trusts began in the United States as a model of land tenure that emerged from the civil rights movement in the South. CLTs have slowly gained popularity over the past decades, expanding dramatically in recent years. They have spread across continents and contexts, resulting in a plethora of rules and structures.

Here we highlight select examples of CLTs and cooperative housing around the world highlighted in the Freshfields report, that could be informative models when considering the potential for Rio’s favelas to be titled collectively using a CLT framework or otherwise borrow lessons from cooperative housing.

The article is based on the following report.

The article is part of a series: Brazilian Housing Law Memos

Part 1: What Does the Brazilian Constitution Say About Housing Rights?

Part 2: The Favela as a Community Land Trust: A Solution to Eviction and Gentrification?

Part 3: Community Land Trust Models and Housing Coops from Around the World

catcomm.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Freshfields_Memo_09-01-14_final.pdf