We are in a critical moment that calls for bold action beyond our immediate crises and courageous leadership to build transformative change.

The Bronx has too long been known for its challenges and inequities. More recently, our home has become a hotspot for development that breeds crises of housing affordability and displacement for long-time Bronx residents. Decades of community efforts to rebuild our borough have turned to fighting against landlord harassment and gentrification fueled by predatory equity and intergenerational poverty.

Today, Bronxites can no longer continue the same strategies employed for the last half century. We are building land and community ownership models to stabilize our neighborhoods and support health, shared wealth, and sustainability.

Bronx Community Land Trust

Fighting Forward

The Bronx Community Land Trust (Bronx CLT), incorporated in January 2020, works to build and preserve safe, healthy, and deeply affordable housing for the borough’s racially and economically diverse residents as well as affordable commercial, industrial, and green spaces.

The Bronx CLT allows community members and local stakeholders to collectively own and govern land in their neighborhoods and build shared wealth. Under the Bronx CLT, land is removed from the speculative market to permanently preserve affordability and to serve Bronx residents. This supports long-term sustainability, responsible planning, and equitable development that keeps communities rooted in place.

We work with residents and workers across the Bronx to identify sites they want to preserve, share their vision for what would be possible if we owned land together, and learn about how communities have used CLTs as a strategy for self-determination.

With the support of architectural partners, urban planners and designers, Bronx CLT members have identified publicly-owned lots within City Council Districts 14, 15, 16 and 17 that we could bring under a shared community ownership model. We conducted analyses of opportunities for a mix of residential, commercial, and community space based on each site’s specific zoning regulations, parcel size, community-identified needs, and existing neighborhood assets.

With commitments from every Bronx City Council member, we are realizing our vision for these lots and growing this work. As a member of the New York City Community Land Initiative, we collaborate with CLTs across our city and others to share strategies and scale our model.

Policy Advocacy for Community Ownership

Building a Supportive Ecosystem

Transferring land to the hands of the community is critical but insufficient without a supportive ecosystem that ensures strong community governance, healthy financial standing and compliance, and sustainable spaces.

Our Community Development Committee advocates for legislation, including the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) and the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) on the City and State levels respectively, to provide a pathways to community ownership. These polices would enable residents to own their own homes, stabilizing their buildings and protecting vulnerable tenants are on the verge of homelessness.