Housing Spotlight: Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts

Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts: Collective land ownership to defend housing affordability and empower communities

Leaders from the Toronto Chinatown Land Trust lead members of CNCLT on a walking tour, speaking about strategies Chinese communities have used for generations to collectively steward land, as well as the growing threat of displacement by development. (Credit: Sandro Pehar)The community land trust model is increasingly considered a way to address Canada’s housing affordability crisis while also bringing broader positive impacts: securing reparative justice for historically excluded communities, maintaining culture, and empowering people to get involved in the places where they live and work.

“Community land trusts (CLTs) are a model of land tenure that emphasizes collective ownership of land, permanent affordability of assets on that land, and community benefit,” explains Nat Pace, Network Director of the Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts (CNCLT). 

Established in 2017, CNCLT is a member-based organization that convenes CLTs across the country. The Network provides technical assistance and serves as a hub of public information specific to starting and growing CLTs within the Canadian context. Its advocacy efforts also focus on increasing understanding of CLTs among all levels of government and funders. As of 2023, there are more than 40 active CLTs across Canada, with nearly 10,000 residential units located on CLT-owned  land. This number is expected to grow by at least 24% by the end of 2024. Not solely housing focused, CLTs can own multiple types of property, including commercial businesses, community spaces, creative hubs, and agricultural land. 

Community governance is central to how CLTs are managed. Take, for example, the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust in Toronto: their board of directors includes representatives from neighbourhood-based organizations, members of the Parkdale community, and people living on or directly using the land owned by the CLT.  

“It’s the balance of having those three groups with their different interests and knowledge coming to the table to make decisions,” says Celia Wandio, a Community Land Trust Specialist with CNCLT. “This governance model is attractive to a lot of people because they want their community expertise to be recognized.” 

While the CLT model is gaining momentum, barriers remain. Nationally, that includes the need for more funding to acquire affordable rental housing and support organizational capacity building, and a formal definition of CLTs within Canadian legislation. At a municipal level, new policies could ease the acquisition of land by community organizations, and cities could better identify property to be sold or donated to CLTs. “There’s a lot more education needed, but just from the rate of our inbox messages it’s clear that interest in the model has grown,” says Pace.

 

Accelerating Canada’s community land trust movement 

With support from the McConnell Foundation, CNCLT is developing the CLT ecosystem across Canada. 

The Upper Hammonds Plains CLT gathered community members in February 2024 to inform the development of their organization. In early 2024, the Network created a cohort of five CLTs from across the country, with a focus on equity-deserving groups. Each unique in its scope, a common thread running through the cohort is its strong reparative lens and ability to preserve something that could be lost, such as housing affordability, historic land title, culture, or neighbourhood character.  

“We’re not looking at giving the nations a solution that they have to rely on external support to construct. Our goal is to build out internal labour capacity,” explains Candace Larsen, Business Development Manager for One Bowl, the arm of Wahkohtowin that manages Tree to Home. Larsen’s role was created with the support of McConnell Foundation funding.  

For example, two African Nova Scotian CLTs are using the model to secure historic land trust titles that have been in their community — though often unrecognized by the public record — for centuries. The Toronto Chinatown Land Trust aims to protect affordable housing and culturally competent services in a neighbourhood that is rapidly gentrifying. Further west, the Calgary Urban Indigenous Community Land Trust demonstrates how CLTs can contribute to the Land Back movement, exhibiting a model of collective land ownership that is off reserve and Indigenous-led 

CNCLT will support the cohort until October 2026 with technical assistance such as conducting community engagement, public education, budgeting, and municipal advocacy. The five groups can also access funding to hire additional professional expertise

There is also the potential to share the experiences of this cohort with other CLTs. “There’s a lack of knowledge around how these groups can do this radical, important work in a practical way,” expands Wandio. “We really want to create the resources that will enable other groups to do similar things.” 

Pace explains what this CLT cohort will enable: It’s an incredible opportunity for power shifting within the Canadian housing landscape. CLTs move peoples’ perspectives away from land as a commodity towards something that is life-giving and essential for communities and cultures to thrive.”