Photos by Steve King
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GAINING GROUND Church Members break new ground thanks to the Oakland Community Land Trust.
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This Land is Your Land
East Bay community land trusts look to post-Covid future BY JANIS HASHE
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re-pandemic, the story of unhoused Oakland mothers and their children calling themselves “Moms4Housing” and moving into a long-vacant house became national, and then international, news. Yet the resolution of whom or what should take possession of the house the
group was occupying is perhaps the most important part of the story. After convoluted negotiations that lasted for months, in January 2020, the Oakland Community Land Trust (OCLT) was officially allowed to purchase the home for renovation. This drew attention to a concept for creating affordable
housing and fighting gentrification that is taking hold nationwide—but which already has established roots in the East Bay. Community land trusts are nonprofit corporations that purchase buildings and land to develop into affordable housing, among their other work. Because
their focus is on preservation of neighborhoods and communities, they are looked to as an example of how to combat both homelessness and gentrification. “New CLTs are emerging all the time,” said OCLT Executive Director Steve King. “The state now has more than 20.” OCLT has several projects in the pipeline, including a sevenunit building on 12th Avenue, and a donated 10-unit property on Fairmount Avenue that was once a single-family home. “We are also close to closing on a 25-unit live/work property on 5th Ave., south of Jack London Square,” King said. In each case, residents approached OCLT for help in saving and upgrading their homes. “Some of the residents have lost jobs as a result of the pandemic,” King said. “Many are concerned about the speculative investors who are coming in.” The pandemic has caused multiple project delays— but it has also renewed interest in “inventing the policies and procedures to facilitate the work,” he said. The 47-year-old, Berkeleybased Northern California Land Trust currently has 15 projects in the works in both Berkeley and Oakland, totaling approximately 90 units, according to Executive Director Ian Winters. The NCLT also acts as a land trust “incubator,” helping community organizations navigate the complexities of the development process. It’s currently incubating projects in Richmond and Vallejo. Winters pointed to a property on 10th Street in Berkeley, acquired by the NCLT just before the pandemic hit. “The owner had been selling it to be ‘repositioned,’” inviting the unhousing of eight households of color as well as gentrification, Winters said. “Because of Measure O money, we bought it at the last minute, and now eight households have permanently affordable housing,” he said. Measure O, passed by the Berkeley community in 2018, authorized $135 million in bonds for low-to-middle-income housing.
