Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS: a solidarity-based and self-managed investment practice

Fondazione di Comunità Porta Palazzo, and the working group Progetto Abitativo per Porta Palazzo e Aurora have long grappled with this issue, eventually identifying in the establishment of the Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS, on 2 May 2024, the tool to address it in practice.

Understanding the Community Land Trust

A Community Land Trust represents a model of real estate management that removes residential units from the speculative market and turns them into a real estate social asset; it contributes to urban regeneration by transforming land ownership into a common good and by avoiding speculative and privatising dynamics, creating social value and addressing emerging needs, promoting the right to a dwelling as well as social justice, combating exclusion, marginalization, and the social and economic costs that they produce.
A Community Land Trust is a non-profit entity whose distinctive feature is dual ownership: it purchases real estate and then separates ownership of the land from that of the residential units. In this way, ownership of the residential units can be transferred, under Italian law, as surface rights, while the land on which the building stands remains property of the Community Land Trust in perpetuity, and it cannot be sold. Unlike properties managed through traditional models, which can be sold, or whose intended use can be modified, the common ownership of the Community Land Trust’s land makes it an asset that cannot be sold, nor its intended use can be modified, thus turning it into a ‘common good’ that can be used by the community in perpetuity. This aspect calls into question a way of understanding private property, moving towards a model of property for community use.
Should one of the owners choose to leave the apartment, the Community Land Trust has the option to buy back from them the surface right, option that can be taken either directly, or by drawing a new owner from the waiting list of would-be owners. The purchase price is determined through a formula that balances the remuneration of the seller and cost affordability for the buyer, maintaining favourable conditions over time and protecting the real estate assets from excessive increases in market value. Sellers recover their capital in full, protected from depreciation, while buyers continue to find more favourable conditions compared to the market. In this way, the Community Land Trust acts as a countercyclical force in the real estate market.
A further feature of a Community Land Trust is its composite governance, which involves different interests: apartment owners, community organisations, and representatives of the general interest, usually represented by institutions.

The Italian experience

Community Land Trust Foundation – Terreno Comune ETS is the first Community Land Trust established in Italy. The legal model identified to embody this type of entity in the framework of Italian law is that of the Participation Foundation registered with RUNTS, the National Register of the Third Sector. This model, in fact, allows for the participation of different types of partners, both individuals and organizations as well as institutions.
The goal of Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS is to provide access to affordable housing in the Porta Palazzo – Aurora neighbourhoods in Turin. It does not intend to replace public intervention in the context of Public Housing, and does not aim at offering residential solutions to those who have the right to access public housing. It looks, instead, for families with an income that, although reasonable, remains insufficient to access an adequate home on the neighbourhood real estate market, such as single-income families with children whose income is approximately between 1,300 and 1,500 euros per month, with the aim of being able to offer an overall housing cost, including mortgage, heating and condominium expenses that does not exceed 33-35% of income.
The establishment of Fondazione Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS is therefore an important initiative of solidarity-based and self-managed investment as well. Thanks to the participation of 81 people and 5 organizations, in fact, allowed, on 1 July 2024, to purchase a property without resorting to bank loans. This extraordinary self-financing ability is the result of the trust built over time by Fondazione di Comunità Porta Palazzo, and is a practical example of enhancement of social capital. The lenders organized themselves into a promoters’ committee that became one of the founding members of Fondazione Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS, together with Fondazione di Comunità Porta Palazzo and Associazione CoAbitare.
The property purchased, a late 19th century private residential building, will undergo renovation after which it will offer 16 apartments, several collective condominium spaces and a communal space open to the neighbourhood. The renovation will take about two years. During this time some of the more granular details of the project will be worked out. For the start-up phase, During the starting phase, the Community Land Trust will set up a board involving neighbourhood’s organisations as well as public institutions and universities to define the criteria for the selection of the families that will live in the residential units, thus guaranteeing transparency and equity in the process. At a later stage, the governance of Fondazione Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS will be defined, with the involvement of civil society and representatives of public bodies, as well as the residents of the building. The decision to sell the apartments’ surface rights instead of renting them out stems from two interconnected practices: on the one hand, the desire to help the owners in building up a savings capital and a process of bankability, thus increasing their options of choice, and on the other hand , to work on the issue of well-being in a broad sense by practicing a capability approach as defined by Amartya Sen, that is, the ability of individuals to make meaningful choices and to live a life that they have reason to value. According to Sen, well-being should not only be measured in terms of income or material resources, but also in terms of the actual opportunities that people have to realize their potential. In this sense, the  ‘capabilities’ are the substantial freedoms that people have to pursue various goals and activities that they consider important. These include the capability to live long and healthy lives, to be educated, to participate in social and political life, to have access to economic resources. This approach shifts the focus from the resources available to individuals to the real possibilities they have of using those resources to achieve meaningful results in their own lives.

Table of the Community Land Trust project on Corso Giulio Cesare (image shared by Andrea Couvert).

Ongoing conversations

Fondazione Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS is an urban workshop that, in addition to the objectives mentioned earlier, reflects on the right to the city and housing policies in Turin and Italy. Certainly, this project cannot respond to all housing needs. Aware of its partiality, the promoters see this project as a contribution to the ongoing reflection on how to develop a plurality of tools to address differentiated housing needs.
In collaboration with Urban Lab Torino, Fondazione di Comunità Porta Palazzo has initiated conversations with the municipal administration, third sector organisations and the academia. Such discussions aim to explore and develop innovative strategies to address current housing and social challenges, promoting an inclusive and sustainable approach.
These reflections develop along the following fronts:

• Dwelling as a common good: a Community Land Trust may be an effective tool to create collective real estate, an actual community real estate asset. This management model is governed according to the logic of the commons, thus removing properties from the speculative dynamics of the real estate market. Community Land Trusts differ from both, public and private ownership models, in that they are based on a community of users and supporters of collective interests. The concept of Community Land Trust refers not only to forms of ownership, but also to collaborative decision-making processes for their management. Within Community Land Trusts, decisions are made by the community, resulting in a democratic and participatory approach to resource management, as well as in social development.
• New affordable construction: what interaction can there be between new housing models and urban planning tools? As observed in some European countries as well as in the Italian context, the presence of new collaborative, supportive and accessible dwelling models is effective when it stimulates a renewal of urban planning tools and government plans. We want to discuss the role that new dwelling models, in particular Community Land Trusts, can play as instruments for shaping the city. Starting with innovative practices, how do we stimulate a strategic vision that responds to differentiated dwelling demands? How can urban planning, both on a technical and regulatory level, welcome, stimulate, and encourage these new models? Starting from consolidated practices, we propose to investigate the urban planning and administrative tools available, already tested or to be implemented, for the creation of new public dwelling solutions disjoint from the issue of profit. We want to look at dwellings not only as a response to specific needs, but as a tool for the management of urban transformations with a perspective of inclusion and spatial justice.
• Capability Capital and Access to Dwelling: As introduced above, the concept of capability, developed by economist Amartya Sen, suggests that the ability to develop capabilities to choose opportunities for economic autonomy can have a positive impact, enabling individuals to improve their well-being and to imagine and shape a different future in relation to their community. This consideration includes the Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS, which aims to identify potential capability opportunities for its residents—both at the individual and community levels—that are functional to the development of personal capabilities and access to economic and material opportunities. In a context characterized by marked economic inequalities, such as that of Aurora – Porta Palazzo, capability is a tool for social justice. This is why the goal of Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS is not only to facilitate access to affordable housing but also to improve the bankability of the families involved by enabling the creation of a form of savings capital that is not based on speculative dynamics.
• Collaboration between civil society and local public actors to promote dwelling as a common good: the European cities that saw the most change and practices of inclusive, collaborative and innovative dwelling projects are those where there has been a strong collaboration between civil society and local public bodies. We want to disseminate some virtuous practices and dynamics that have made possible the creation of accessible and de-mercified housing in some European cities and discuss possible collaborative practices between civil society and public actors that could also be experimented in our city.

The practices and thoughts discussed above arise from an effort to reflect on the tools of participation and democracy, therefore the conception of possible solutions is based on a collective process; without building open and democratic spaces for reflection and action, we cannot exercise the power necessary to counteract the mechanisms of disintegration and search for individualistic solutions that characterise our neighbourhoods. It therefore becomes essential to build and rebuild, disorganise and reorganise in a continuous cycle, places and spaces of participatory democracy. This is the goal that we are collectively trying to achieve through our pilot experience of Community Land Trust.

Andrea Couvert – Deputy Chairman of Fondazione Community Land Trust – Terreno Comune ETS