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What is a Community Land Trust (CLT)?

The basic idea seems to be that the land (and ALL things it contains, like oil, coal, etc) is held by the community in trust. Then members can in essence "rent" the land and build whatever they want (within reason) on it. The land is "their land" in the sense that they cannot be expelled and they can use it to make a profit, however, they can neither sub-let the land or sell it at a profit (land speculation).

How Does it Stack Up with the Church's Teachings?

This is an idea that runs counter the American ideal, but seems quite in line with the Catholic principle of universal destination of goods, which is described in Gaudium et Spes in the following manner: "God destined the earth and all it contains for all men and all peoples so that all created things would be shared fairly by all mankind under the guidance of justice tempered by charity" (Gaudium et Spes, 6). The Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church connects this to comments in John Paul II's encyclical marking the centennial of the publication of Rerum Novarum "the original source of all that is good is the very act of God, who created both the earth and man, and who gave the earth to man so that he might have dominion over it by his work and enjoy its fruits (Gen 1:28-29). God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding or favouring anyone" (Centesimus Annus, 31).

The key to this teaching, as noted by the Compendium is that it deals with "the goods of the earth" as opposed to goods which man has fashioned (the most obvious example of this is the air, but the land should be another example). Paul VI goes so far as to say that "

While the Community Land Trust idea is limited by the modern system of property laws (you can't just say, here is some land, have at it, as the American Indians learned), it does recognize private property in what seems a very natural sense. John Paul II, again from Centesiums Annus, says that through our modification of creation, man "makes part of the earth his own, precisely the part which he has acquired through work; this is the origin of individual property" (Centesimus Annus, 31). With a Community Land Trust, this is exactly what happens. Houses, farms, animals, crops, etc are the property of the person who owns them. However, the land is no more exclusively theirs than the air that happens to circulate over his corn. Further discussion of the proper role of private property can be found in the Compendium of Social Doctrine under the heading of "The universal destination of goods and private property."

The Community Land Trust (CLTs) idea, while it seems strange at first, does have precedent in the US. It is apparently common for builders in urban areas to rent the land and then build on it. Of course, I'm sure there is no connection to this and the moral ideas behind CLTs.

More information on CLTs:
National CLT Network (http://www.cltnetwork.org/)
CL T Resources from the Burlington Associates (http://www.burlingtonassociat es.com/resources/)
EF Schumacher Society CLT info (http://smallisbeautiful.org/c lts.html)

Learn more about this author, Brian Douglass.
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