Valley Community Land Trust Incorporated

In the late 70's a group of friends got together and started a reading group to discuss land tenure.  Who owns the land has often shaped the history of inequality - how could that story be changed?

Inspired by Bob Swann and others - this group decided they would start a Community Land Trust.  A new type of community model for land stewardship.  The Land Trust would own the land and lease it to interested homesteaders for 99 years.  Breaking the cycle of land speculation and focusing on practical access to land for low-income families and farmers.

35 years, 100 acres, and 10 homesteads later - VCLT is still striving to uphold the lofty ideals it started with.  Operating as a volunteer-run, grassroots operation built for the following purposes:

1)      To acquire and hold title to land, not as private or public property, but in trusteeship; to hold such land in stewardship for present and future generations by keeping said land from the pressures of speculation.

2)      To provide access to land, through long-term lease agreements, for persons who cannot secure or maintain access or do not wish to enter into private ownership of land.

3)      To facilitate access to housing for low-income people and others who wish to further the purposes of the Corporation.

4)      To encourage patterns of land management based on the responsible use of renewable and non-renewable resources and long-term productivity of the land.

5)      To do research concerning land management; to disseminate the results of that research and to educate the land trust community and the general public regarding access to low-cost housing, the conservation of natural resources and responsible long-term stewardship of the land.

6)      To support the creation of community based institutions and enterprises and to promote communication and cooperation among such institutions.

7)      To work with democratic decision-making processes in the functions of this community land trust and to build a structure and sense of community which will endure through comings and goings of individual members of the trust.

 

Learn more about our latests projects:

• New leaseholds in Colrain - http://www.vclt.org/VanNuys
• Homeowners fixing up an old school house in Wendell - http://www.vclt.org/Default.aspx?pageId=811337