Chapter 7 - Origins and Evolution of Urban Community Land Trusts in Canada - Susannah Bunce and Joshua Barndt (read by Bob Rose)

Susannah Bunce and Joshua Barndt (read by Bob Rose)

The development of community land trusts in Canada occurred over a 40-year period in two distinct phases. The first generation of Canadian CLTs (1980 – 2012) either combined community-owned land with multi-unit housing cooperatives in Toronto and Montreal or promoted individual homeownership in western and central Canada. More recently, a second generation of CLTs has emerged in cities throughout the country in response to an escalating crisis in affordable housing, taking the form of either community-based or sector-based initiatives. Since 2017, older and newer CLTs have coalesced, via the Canadian Network of CLTs.

What is On Common Ground?

ON COMMON GROUND is a collection of original essays, written by 42 scholars and practitioners from a dozen countries, tracing the growth and diversification of the international community land trust movement.

A community land trust (CLT) is a transformative strategy of community-led development on community-owned land that has taken root in the Global North and is now spreading to the Global South. CLTs produce and preserve affordably priced homes, community gardens, retail spaces, and a variety of neighborhood facilities – all developed under the guidance of the people who live nearby; all managed to remain permanently affordable for people of modest means.