Model Documents

• Model Ground Lease   In 1991, the Institute for Community Economics published the first edition of the Community Land Trust Legal Manual, which contained a “model” residential ground lease. Ten years later, a major revision of the Legal Manual and Model Lease was carried out by a team of people who were actively engaged in providing technical assistance to CLTs, including Kirby White, Jeff Yegian, and Carol Lewis from the staff of ICE and John Davis, Tim McKenzie, Michael Brown, and Mary O’Hara from Burlington Associates in Community Development, LLC. The principal legal consultant for this process was David Abromowitz, from the Boston firm of Goulston and Storrs, P.C. Financial support for the preparation of a revised edition of the Community Land Trust Legal Manual, published by ICE in 2002, was provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Copies of the Legal Manual, Revised Model Lease, as well as permission to modify this Word version of the Model Lease available from ICE and Equity Trust.

 

• Commentary on Revised Model Ground Lease

  This commentary is designed to provide information regarding the options that were considered in drafting the Model Lease so that each CLT can decide what alternative provisions might be more appropriate for its own situation. The commentary also touches upon certain legal issues that may deserve research under the laws of the particular jurisdiction in which the CLT will operate.

   

• Plain Language Summary of CLT Ground Lease

  As a durable, enforceable, recorded legal instrument, the CLT ground lease is a lengthy and complicated document. Consequently, many CLTs have found it beneficial to have a "plain language" summary of the ground lease available for prospective buyers of CLT homes. Such a summary can never take the place of the legal language contained in the ground lease, but it can be used in orientation sessions to introduce the lease to new members of a CLT board or to educate prospective buyers of CLT homes. Presented here is one example of such a plain language summary, prepared by Tim McKenzie in 2003, updating an earlier summary authored by Jeff Yegian.

 

• CLT Operations

 

• CLT Accounting Manual for QuickBooks Pro
  • pdf
  • [Courtesy of the Community Land Trust Alliance of San Juan Islands]
• Entry Survey for CLT Homebuyers
  • pdf
  • Word
  • [Courtesy of Jeff Yegian, ICE]
• Exit Survey for CLT Homebuyers
  • pdf
  • Word
  • [Courtesy of Jeff Yegian, ICE]

   

• Troy Gardens Case Study

  This is a collaborative project between the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Madison Area Community Land Trust -- looking at Troy Gardens, a 31-acre project combining community gardens, a restored prairie, a working farm, and 30 units of mixed-income cohousing.

  www.troygardens.net

 

• Glossary of Commonly Used CLT Terms (12 pages - pdf)

PUBLICATIONS

• National Housing Institute
  • Shared Equity Homeownership Report (158 pages - pdf)
    The National Housing Institute has published a new report by John Davis of Burlington Associates examining the programs and performance of community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, and deed-restricted houses and condominiums.  It also looks at state and municipal policies that support -- or impede -- the expansion of these innovative models of housing tenure.  The report is entitled "Shared Equity Homeownership: the Changing Landscape of Resale-Restricted, Owner-occupied Housing". 
    • National Housing Institute: www.nhi.org
    • Burlington Associates in Community Development: (www.burlingtonassociates.com).

     

• Roots of the CLT Movement, an essay on the history behind the CLT movement, was written in 2001 by Vicki Lindsay, founding director of the community land trust in Gloucester, MA, and member of the CLT Academy board.