How Three Neighborhoods Utilize Community Land Trusts to Fight Displacement
By Ivi Lewis
On a chilly fall afternoon, a community room is bustling with activity at a mid-size senior residence near the rumble of the Jackie Robinson Parkway. Typically, a day in this room would include residents hosting a wide range of movie nights, birthday parties, or an intense round of mahjong. However, this day presented a different atmosphere for guests, a chance to learn about their rights as tenants.
This is just one of the opportunities the East New York Community Land Trust (ENYCLT)—a resident-led and democratically-run non-profit organization—offers to citizens living all over the Brooklyn communities of East New York and Brownsville.
At this meeting, ENYCLT members led a discussion in their first Anti-Speculation Summit. What started as an in-depth overview of the manipulative, abusive tactics of predatory property investors grew into an informative conversation about the presence of an actual speculator currently impacting citizens in East New York. According to the group, an owner living outside of the community, maintaining over fifteen properties, has intentionally mismanaged the homes for tenants for years.[i],[ii] A lack of heat during the cold winter months, repeatedly ignored floods, and the constant clutter of trash inside and outside the building were just the tip of the mountain of complaints tenants had for this company. ENYCLT members described their ideas to engage with tenants in hopes of encouraging them to mobilize against the actions (or lack thereof) concerning their “slumlord.”
Halfway through the meeting, members turned the format on its head by asking the guest, “How can we connect with other people impacted by speculation?”
The room flooded with answers.
Attendees suggested digging up additional information on landlords, including the sources of their investments. Some propose going to social media to make the public aware of this situation, finding more interpersonal ways to connect with tenants in the building, or simply calling out the speculators. Lawyers from the legal nonprofit TakeRoot Justice were also at the meeting, offering all guests the chance to get personal advice on addressing their rental issues.
After the meeting, attendees were enthusiastic about joining the movement; some offered to collaborate for canvassing with tenants, others collected one-pagers filled with information about tenants’ rights— expressing plans to share amongst their neighbors, and most promised to pop into their next general member’s meeting happening that following month.
This is just a tiny sample of the work a community land trust (CLT) does. A CLT is a non-profit organization that treats land as a public good.[iii] Most land and buildings in cities are typically privately owned by an individual or a business. A CLT is an entity that owns land collectively within a community and works to ensure that it’s used in ways that best benefit the community as a whole. It can function as a “trust” that the community holds to promote equitable development and prevent displacement of those who may have been living there for generations. CLTs can be used as a tool in unique ways. In most instances, the buildings present or developed on top of the land are collectively owned and used by local organizations, businesses, and individuals to establish permanently affordable housing, community spaces, and jobs. The ultimate goal is to foster community empowerment.[iv] When detailing the functions of a CLT, Will Spisak, Senior Program Associate at New Economy Project, described the organization as a group of “stewards” leading the act of bringing people together to prioritize their community’s needs–even on land not (yet) controlled by the CLT.
New York City’s CLT movement has grown significantly in just the last decade. As of January 2023, at least twenty CLTs were in operation or in various stages of development within sixteen neighborhoods across the city. All but two of these were organized in the last eleven years. The concept of CLTs isn’t new to the City: the Cooper Square CLT is the longest-running organization, and it has been in operation since 1993.[v] It’s not hard to wonder why CLTs have become more attractive recently compared to thirty years ago. Could it be the rise of evictions since the COVID-19 pandemic?[vi] Or the massive number of residents rent-burdened—using more than 30% of their income to pay rent and utilities—some (often those with low income) severely burdened, paying up to 60% of their income?[vii] Could it be the high number of open housing violations some of the “worst landlords” in the city currently hold?[viii] Or is it due to residents seeing a 66% increase in foreclosures from 2022 to 2023?[ix] “CLTs in New York at the moment are generally a part of this longer trajectory of housing and community activism,” states ENYCLT Board Member and PhD Candidate Jakob K. Schneider. “New York doesn’t have twenty-something CLTs in some stage of development just because it’s the new hot thing. There’s a history there that you should always think about.”
History could be repeating itself. The city has seen many housing crises over the years, inspiring new energy of resistance and organization. During the mid-2000s, after years of organizing around housing affordability, homelessness, and the subprime mortgage crisis, concerned New Yorkers formed community-based advocacy groups like the New Economy Project to explore CLTs as a strategy to prevent foreclosures and stabilize housing, particularly in Black and brown neighborhoods. Today, with rapid development following neighborhood rezoning under the administrations of Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio, longtime residents are witnessing the rippling effects of population increase and swift displacement of their neighbors and institutions who can no longer afford the increased rents that rezonings can bring. Studies have shown the impact of rezoning in Brooklyn communities like Williamsburg and Park Slope—with a massive decrease in their Black and brown residents.[x] Similarly, communities like Brownsville, East New York, and Flatbush have all experienced rezoning and rapid housing development that current residents cannot pay for, giving community members a rightful reason to be worried. This makes the emergence of CLTs even more relevant today, helping community members cultivate a distinctive opportunity to organize around land-use decision-making and models of community control. But the process isn’t easy and often takes years, or even decades, to come to fruition.
“There isn’t a set-out pathway for it,” said Brianna Soleyn, ENYCLT Board Member and Hunter College MUP alumna. “It’s motivating to think that we can actually be imaginative and not follow the script of these big bureaucracies. We can be imaginative and achieve things.” The achievements Brianna is describing aren’t a small feat. For years, ENYCLT has found creative ways to advocate for its community. What grew from campaigns on abolishing tax lien sales (a law that allows predatory buyers easy access to purchase property carrying massive debt in taxes or utility charges), bringing awareness of the climate risks on neglected land, and supporting community members facing displacement blossomed into the official purchase of their first property.
In 2023, ENYCLT, alongside experienced housing advocates from Oakland, California, organized a crowdfunding campaign for the private acquisition of 248 Arlington, a twenty-one-unit multifamily building in the heart of their community. For years, a group member living in the building worked tirelessly to organize their fellow tenants to hold their landlord accountable for their neglect of the building. When introduced to the idea of purchasing the building directly from the owner, tenants jumped at the opportunity. Members gathered research on ownership and began negotiations with the landlord. After a year-long battle, with rigorous fundraising for donations and other sources of sponsorship, the group raised the purchase price of nearly $3 million. Soon, their efforts reached the ears of elected officials, such as Councilwoman Sandy Nurse and Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez, who committed to fund rehabilitation of the building. Currently, the building is being renovated and converted into a housing cooperative to ensure affordability, prevent displacement, and create an entry for home ownership. This wasn’t only a win for ENYCLT and the tenants of 248 Arlington, but for all emerging CLTs in Brooklyn.
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Next door, in the neighborhood of Brownsville, community members are formatting the foundation of their community land trust. The idea of a CLT is not new to this area. In 2019, as a community volunteer, Noelle Meyers-Powell worked alongside the grassroots group Brownsville Neighborhood Empowerment Network on the possible development of a CLT. They began producing outreach strategies and materials to gather more interest within the community, but the COVID-19 pandemic paused their work. Years later, as the Partnership Director at United for Brownsville, Meyers-Powell picked up where she had left off, leading the project management process and engaging with residents to come together and form a working group.
“The first year of my work…was rebuilding relationships, rebuilding trust,” she noted while expressing the importance of patience. “It takes a lot longer than people think to build and rebuild relationships and trust your people first before you can even start doing the organizing.”
After almost a year of making foundational connections, Brownsville CLT now has an active group of volunteers, all allocated to subcommittees, including a unique committee comprised of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents. Brownsville has the largest concentration of public housing in the entire nation. Within the 1.2 square miles of the community, there are eighteen NYCHA public housing developments[xi] with approximately 21,000 people living in them.[xii] With this knowledge, the group believes engaging with NYCHA residents is essential as they are a huge representation of the community. Often, community members view NYCHA as its own entity, separating themselves from the individuals and families who live there. “People typically treat NYCHA as its own community, which realistically, it is. It’s like its own campus,” said Dasia Jenkins, Community Engagement Coordinator of Pitkin Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) and active member of the Brownsville CLT.
The subcommittee was designed with the intention of bringing NYCHA residents into the conversation, including them in a community they’re often left out of. Though their landlord is the city, many residents across the neighborhood suffer the same issues of repair and infrastructure neglect as those with private landlords. For years, residents have organized against the improper infrastructure of the buildings and the lack of heat and gas that comes with it—especially during the intense winter months.[xiii] “They’re just fighting for the same things,” Meyers-Powell expressed, “We should be working together…having these conversations.” Currently, the committee is creating a conversation series to discuss the complex narrative of NYCHA and find ways to build connections with the CLT. “For a CLT, it’s also a hub of information, it’s a hub for advocacy, community engagement…tying people into the built environment,” adds Jenkins. With a common understanding of the power in numbers, this emergent steering committee is getting its start in a new, creative way of community building.
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In New York City, a common and foundational way to build community is within Community Boards. People from many backgrounds of gender, race, education, and culture all come together with the shared goal to project the needs of their neighborhood. After years of practicing general corporate law, longtime Brooklyn resident Allyson Martinez decided to put her professional skills to use by co-chairing Community Board 17’s Land Use Committee. This leadership role helped Martinez gain a new perspective on land use, urban planning, and housing issues in her East Flatbush community. In 2017, New Jersey native Rachel Goodfriend joined the committee as a new resident in the district, energized to get involved in her community. When senior community members expressed concerns about predatory developers attempting to take over their properties, the ladies hit the ground running on finding innovative ways to push back against gentrification and displacement.
They started small by conducting forums to teach people about zoning and the changes that could come with rezoning. These informative conversations transformed into reflections on what people want to see in their communities. Soon, however, they realized that the work they sought to do would be impossible to contain within the community board itself. While frozen in time during the COVID-19 pandemic, they created the nonprofit Brooklyn Level Up (BKLVLUP),[xiv] a community development corporation focused on communal wealth and empowerment within East Flatbush, Flatbush, and Flatlands. Over time, the organization became a valuable source for entrepreneurship, environmental justice, and anti-displacement.
As an attorney and real estate broker, Martinez realized the rapid increase in market values meant many locals would be unable to afford the new prices, and she saw the extensive loss that the community could face as a result. She grew inspired to create a positive and easy atmosphere to promote collective ownership, not only creating a model centered around tenants, but also for those seeking home ownership. This influenced the development of BKLVLUP CLT, with the aim to lower the barriers to entry to ownership and create a flow of generational wealth building. A CLT could be essential to low-income communities like East Flatbush, where most citizens pay rent and are often stuck in the cycle of poverty. Obtaining ownership can break the cycle and allow residents to pass something down to their next of kin. To start, they conducted trainings, informing residents of the prevalence of CLTs. Through the support of various community organizations like the Brooklyn Economic Justice Project and the New York City Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI), the team was able to conduct interpersonal engagement strategies to start discussions around land use. From community dinners to surveys, the group collected a list of concerns and hopes residents had regarding the buildings, spaces, and programs they needed to see in their neighborhood. “CLTs can’t only be about housing. It’s about community. Communities need more than just housing,” stated Martinez.
Today, with a small group of just three members, they’re actively thinking of ways to boost membership and activate their neighbors: one member is designing a marketing plan to spread awareness online, another is leading a mission to canvass from door to door, and the last member plays a supportive role as an elder in the community rooted in the vision of the initiatives. “One thing I’ve been learning in this work is the importance of building an ecosystem of community partners and people who are aligned in the work,” says Martinez when describing her beginnings of organizing BKLVLUP and the CLT. Though very new in their collaboration as a team, their work has given community members a space to build a village that reflects their neighborhood and serves as an alternative to a community board. “There’s no one right model; it’s just a matter of trial and error, and then you must stay always true to your intentions.”
When asked what they would hope to see over the next few decades after the official emergence of their CLTs, Brownsville and East Flatbush organizers listed off different aspirations: to gain more public support and funding from their local officials, recruit and sustain full-time staffers on their team, acquire land and property that community members can oversee, and preserve the housing and culture within the community. A common desire between both organizers was for the institutions to have a strong foundation within the community. They hope people will use their CLT as a resource to build connections, seek help, and seek answers. “Something that everyone knows about and that people know to call on,” states Meyers-Powell of Brownsville CLT, “call the CLT…know that it’s there for them.” Throughout the waves of changes in Brownsville, East New York, and Flatbush neighborhoods, residents have realized that connecting and building within their communities is the best way to stay afloat amid transition.
Cities are constantly changing and always in a constant state of innovation. With the good it can bring, change often neglects the people who make a living in these communities worthwhile. Residents in these low-income communities have found new ways to tread the waters of rezoning, rapid development of overpriced housing, and slumlords who leave their tenants in unlivable conditions. “I may not see it in my lifetime, but the work that we’re doing is for the next generation,” said one ENYCLT member. ”We are fighting on the higher level.”
Endnotes
[i] J, Sheila. “Exposing the truth about Artex property management.” Youtube, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__cVVO7ByIE&t=63s.
[ii] “Artex Property Management (Reviews).” Google, https://www.google.com/search?q=Artex+property+management+rentals&sca_esv=ace47463fdba11b8&rlz=1C5OZZY_enUS1128US1131&sxsrf=ADLYWIL4JwdCX7dYHQAYmTz9-f3r5eFpPw:1735934797576&ei=TUN4Z6byIvDcptQP6NG8wAY&start=0&sa=N&sstk=ATObxK6-YhmuPU9H93ATwQtewqfVvcRcXV0ykH.
[iii] NYC Community Land Initiative. “Frequently Asked Questions.” NYCCLI, 2023, https://nyccli.org/resources/clts-and-mhas-frequently-asked-questions/.
[iv] “Frequently Asked Questions.” NYC Community Land Initiative, 2023, https://nyccli.org/resources/clts-and-mhas-frequently-asked-questions/.
[v] Morse, S. (2023, April). CLTs Gaining Ground in NYC. In Policies to Sustain and Scale the Growth of Community Trusts. Pratt Center for Community Development. https://prattcenter.net/our_work/gaining_ground
[vi] Brand, David. “LeFrak City has the most evictions in NYC. The landlord is suing to speed up the process.” Gothamist, 2024, https://gothamist.com/news/lefrak-city-has-the-most-evictions-in-nyc-the-landlord-is-suing-to-speed-up-the-process.
[vii] Siegel, Jonathan, et al. “Spotlight: New York City’s Rental Housing Market :Office of the New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.” NYC Comptroller, 17 January 2024, https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/spotlight-new-york-citys-rental-housing-market/.
[viii] Zaveri, Mihir. “NYC Landlord Faces Arrest Over ‘Dangerous Conditions’ in Apartments.” The New York Times, 11 March 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/nyregion/landlord-arrest-building-dangerous-conditions.html.
[ix] Bradley, Anna. “Brooklyn Foreclosures More Than Doubled Last Year.” Brownstoner, 25 January 2024, https://www.brownstoner.com/real-estate-market/foreclosures-brooklyn-2023-increase-702-44th-street/.
[x] Churches United for Fair Housing (CUFHH). “Zoning & Racialized Displacement in NYC.” 2019, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5dc0429de5717c7ff1caead0/t/5de6c0e683bec649d37ab0cc/1575403753814/Zoning+and+Racialized+Displacement+in+NYC.pdf.
[xi] The Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety. “Changing the Narrative: Improving public safety and quality of life for Brownsville Residents.” City of New York, 2019, https://map.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Brownsville-Houses-Policy-Brief.pdf.
[xii] Bellafante, Ginia. “Resurrecting Brownsville.” The Nation, 2013, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/resurrecting-brownsville/
[xiii] Morales, Monica. “Brownsville NYCHA tenants says buildings have inconsistent heat, hot water.” Pix 11, 2023, https://pix11.com/news/local-news/brooklyn/brownsville-nycha-tenants-says-buildings-have-inconsistent-heat-hot-water/.
[xiv] BKLVLUP. “What is BKLVLUP?” Brooklyn Level Up, https://bklvlup.org/.
Ivi Lewis is an activist, educator, and creative born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Since her youth, she’s always dedicated her free time to contributing to her community. That habitat carried over in her years of living in New York City. Today you can find her in packing bags in your local food pantry or conducting a read aloud with kindergarteners. She is a recent graduate of Hunter College Master’s in Urban Planning and a board member for Brooklyn Community Board 17. She looks forward to using her passion in community development and expertise in planning to be an asset to communities across the 5 boroughs.
