
A New Land Tenure System
Since its founding the Schumacher Center for a New Economics has been committed to developing a new tenure system for natural resources -- Earth, Air, Fire (the minerals), and Water. Our premise is that these Nature-given assets are our Common Wealth, needed by all. To keep them in private ownership gives an unfair advantage to the titleholder who can charge "rent" for their use – an "unearned increment," to use the phrase of Henry George. This economic advantage is one of the key reasons for inordinate disparities in wealth accumulation. At the same time a regulation of use is necessary and a means for collecting income from that use is key to ensuring common benefit. Our approach has been to develop non-profit community land trusts to hold and manage natural resources on behalf of the inhabitants of a particular place. The Earth is in crisis due to an economic system that treats natural resources as commodities to exploit rather than as “a community to which we belong,” (Aldo Leopold, 1949). The reform of our property-tenure system is urgent– at stake are the future health of our ecosystem and a fair economy for all.- Background and History
- Community Land Trust Program
- Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires and Berkshire Community Land Trust
- Community Land Trusts and Farmland — Indian Line Farm
- Community Land Trust Tool Kit of Legal Documents
- Community Land Trust Directory
- Community Land Trust Other Resources
- International Applications
Background and History
A community land trust is a democratically governed, regionally based, open membership non-profit corporation. Through an inheritable and renewable long-term lease, the trust removes land from the speculative market and facilitates multiple uses such as workforce housing, village improvement, sustainable agriculture, and recreation. Individual or organizational leaseholders own the buildings and other improvements on the land created by their labor and investment, but do not own the land itself. Resale agreements on the buildings ensure that the land value of a site is not included in future sales, but rather held in perpetuity on behalf of the regional community. In 1967 in Albany, Georgia, Robert Swann, a pacifist and builder who later founded the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, joined Slater King, President of the Albany Movement and a civil rights activist, out of a common concern to provide access to land for Black farmers in the rural South. They contracted to purchase a five thousand acre farm and began a planning process with local residents to structure ownership and plan a settlement of homes and farm buildings. As part of their research they traveled to Israel to study the legal documents of the Jewish National Fund that separate ownership of land from the ownership of buildings on the land. Charles Sherrod, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and his wife Shirley Sherrod were part of that group. Read Fay Bennett’s report on the Israeli trip here.

Community Land Trust Program
The Schumacher Center's Community Land Trust Program is an education and outreach initiative advocating for adoption of the CLT model through a process of civic engagement. Success stories, background essays, model documents, best practices, and other resources will support concerned citizens in the building of community land trusts in their regions. The strategic goal of the program is to demonstrate how community ownership and control of land can be leveraged to create synergy between jobs and housing. The core message is that the CLT approach to land use builds wealth for the whole community, supporting the workforce, increasing upward mobility and fostering economic resilience. As citizen-led initiatives, CLTs can achieve goals like preserving Main Street for locally owned businesses, improving substandard housing, ensuring local farms produce food for local people using good farming practices, establishing sites for community supported industry, and developing strong neighborhoods for full-time residents with local jobs. The benefit of the CLT's democratic structure, strong legal mechanisms, resale formulas, and program stewardship is permanent access with long-term affordability.
Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires and Berkshire Community Land Trust

Community Land Trusts and Farmland — Indian Line Farm
Community Land Trusts and Farmland Access
Indian Line Farm
To preserve Indian Line Farm, the first Community Supported Agriculture farm in North America, the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires and the Schumacher Center for a New Economics collaborated with the Berkshire Highlands Program of The Nature Conservancy and farmers Elizabeth Keen and Alex Thorp. The goal was to maintain a working organic farm, protect the adjacent sensitive wetlands, and provide small-scale farmers with affordable access to land.