Community Land Trust Brussels
Ready, get set, go!
On 29-30 August, CLTB participated in a Design Sprint on how a CLT could be implemented in Amsterdam. Gert De Pauw, CLTB Coordinator, shared his thoughts on the event.
Good news on the land front:
CLTB Trustees signed a deed of purchase for a plot of brownfield land that will be turned into CLT homes.
In other news the Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve (south of Brussels) local executive presented its decision and idea to create a CLT in more details in the August edition of its Local Bulletin.
Community Land Trusts getting all the love
- Ahead of local elections in October, Mohamed Ridouani, Alderman for Housing and candidate for mayor for the city of Leuven, detailed the City’s thinking in terms of innovative housing in an interview. He put a strong emphasis on CLTs as a solution for the city’s shortage of affordable housing.
- The Molenbeek-Saint-Jean (Brussels region) section of the French-speaking Green Party presented the first completed project by CLTB as one of the very key achievements of its 6 years in power in a campaign video for the October local elections on Facebook.
- Professor Nicolas Bernard, leading expert on housing law, and Professor Eric Corijn, renowned expert on urban development, both spoke out in favour of CLTs as an inspirational model for the social housing sector in Brussels in the Summer 2018 edition of “Contour”, the Brussels Social Housing Authority magazine (see here in French and here in Dutch).
You can catch CLTB at these upcoming events:
They will be leading a workshop on CLTs during “Experimentdays 2018”, an event on cohousing taking place on 6 to 9 September in Berlin. Click here for more information.
London CLT
Young people pushing Community Land Trusts in London
A collaborative process undertaken by London CLT, Citizens UK and Advocacy Academy to push for the set up of a Community Land Trust in Lambeth resulted in them securing the Transport For London owned land in east London. A large part of the success is down to the leadership by young people from the Advocacy Academy. You can read about their success and journey here.
Residents from St Clements CLT in the news
A resident from the St Clements site was featured in one of the most read magazines in London, Time Out London. The piece focused on different models of community led housing. You can read the piece here.
The National CLT Network
Fighting for the continuation of the Community Housing Fund in the UK
Together with our members we were instrumental in securing the £300 million Community Housing Fund which was originally announced in the 2016 Spring Budget. The National CLT Network are rallying their members and supporters again to campaign for the Fund to be extended so that it can support community led housing groups and the delivery of truly affordable homes in the way it was intended.
Bids for funding currently need to be in by December 2019. This tight deadline means fewer groups than anticipated will benefit from the Fund, jeopardising the number of homes that could be built or brought back into use. The National CLT Network want to see community led housing become a mainstream housing option that is available to people across the country.
See it and Believe it
Next month the National CLT Network are holding a See it and Believe it in south east England, Cornwall. See it and Believe it is an initiative to galvanise and inform anyone interested or already involved in community-led housing. These immersive peer-to-peer learning events give attendees direct access to a variety of community land trust projects across the country and explore how they came to be.
Tom’s tour around Devon and Somerset
Tom, the Director of the National CLT Network cycled 45 miles to visit three CLTs to have a snack and a chat. Read about his interesting trip here.