British Conservative Party proposal to expand CLTs

From: http://firstrung.co.uk/articles.asp?pageid=NEWS&articlekey=3564&cat=44-0-0

The Conservative Party has launched an innovative new drive to extend home ownership by building on a model championed by Martin Luther King, and inspired by the Levellers of the English Civil War.

And Shadow Housing Minister Michael Gove is to lead a special taskforce which will investigate how to extend the use of Community Land Trusts in order to halve housing costs for a new generation of first-time buyers.

With land prices driving up the cost of housing in Britain today, and a dysfunctional planning system constricting the supply of land for new development, Mr Gove said: "The sad fact is that the dream of home ownership is literally that - a dream - for too many who cannot ever imagine finding the money for their first deposit on a flat or house.

"But we believe that by following the example set by visionary pioneers such as Dr King, that dream can become a reality for many more. That's why the Conservative Party is establishing a new taskforce to explore how we can bring down the barriers which stand in the way of this exciting route to ownership."

The Community Land Trust model is designed to promote greater social responsibility and community involvement in meeting housing needs, as well as giving young people opportunities they would not otherwise have.

Mr Gove will assemble a team of lawyers, landowners, existing CLT pioneers, planners and local government leaders to explore what the current barriers are to the rapid growth of the CLT model and propose solutions which will help unlock the benefits of development for the community.

He explained that CLTs allow land to be released for development, and then owned in perpetuity by a not-for-profit organisation. Houses built on the land can then be made available to new purchasers at half the cost they would otherwise pay. Owners can sell on their properties in due course, and benefit from any increase in the value of the bricks and mortar which has developed over time. The land itself remains in the hands of the CLT.

CLTs also allow for those with limited incomes to get on the ownership ladder by giving families the chance to acquire an initial slice of equity in the property, typically by paying a fixed percentage of their income, and then as their circumstances change they can "staircase up" their level of ownership.

The Community Land Trust model was inspired by the vision of the Levellers and Diggers, radical democrats who fought on Parliament's side in the Civil War, who believed in community ownership of land. The idea was taken up by the Chartists in the Nineteenth Century and made a reality in 1903 with Ebeneezer Howard's development of Letchworth Garden City.

CLTs have been particularly successful in America. Over the past 15 years more than 130 CLTs have been developed in both urban and rural areas of the States. The first CLT in the US was set up by Martin Luther King in 1967 to secure affordable access to land for African American workers.