I ran my first ad today in the Sunday Tasmanian.
It advocates Community Land Trusts for affordable housing. In case its a new concept to you, dear reader, I’ll explain it in a nutshell. Its simple really. Just separate the house from the land it sits on. That is, own the house, but rent the land.
The CLT owns the land and rents it to the user. You build your house, and live in it as normal, with security of tenure and all usual property rights intact. But the rent for the land is a lot less than the mortgage associated with purchasing it outright, so it is more affordable from the start. But the real gains are to future generations. The land rent system, run by a not-for-profit Trust whose mission is to ensure affordable housing for future generations, takes the profit motive out of owning land. With no speculation, there will be no extraordinary price rises.
Land will still appreciate, mind you, because land gets its value from people coming together to form a community, and having services provided to that land. That is legitimate value added to land. Pricing land for future use and speculation is not. That just makes home ownership unaffordable, with the profits of the community going to the lucky few (landowners). Its wrong, and must be addressed.
Community Land Trusts are a means of assisting families into their own home, in a supportive community, and of ensuring affordability into the future. For more detail, check the other entry in the ‘Housing’ archive.
