Opportunities for reimagining our relationship with the future in the built environment

This article was written by the people behind Co-Operate, a joint initiative by And The People, Space&Matter and New Economy.

The transition towards a fair and just society within planetary boundaries is one of the key concerns of our time. Buildings and the construction industry together account for 40% of energy consumption, 36% of CO2 emissions, 50% of raw materials and 33% of waste and water use. Despite all this, across Europe people are confronted with a severe lack of affordable housing and growing homelessness. To address the twin crises of climate change and social inequality we must increase the capacity for communities to self-organise and adapt to life within planetary boundaries.

“People who are embedded in strong communities are able to imagine future generations effectively.” (Roman Krznaric, How to be a Good Ancestor)

Embracing the circular economy is key to the solution; accordingly, it constitutes a central pillar of the European Green Deal. On a smaller scale, the City of Amsterdam has also adopted Kate Raworth’s framework for thriving within planetary boundaries. But what is the circular economy really about? We believe that, at its core, a circular economy is a question of time. We need to expand our time horizon, extend the lifespan of materials and products infinitely, design and develop places and products to last for perpetuity.

To achieve these goals, we need new institutions that will steward long-term thinking, maintain, operate and repair and which will empathise with future generations and their needs. In this article, we explore how collective ownership models at the neighbourhood scale could facilitate circular urban development in Amsterdam. More specifically, we focus on ways in which the Community Land Trust (CLT) might rebalance value creation in the built environment away from financial towards social and environmental value creation. Ultimately, we advocate for the CLT as a vehicle for long-term decision-making in the built environment and argue that the model might be just what we need to catalyse the shift towards a circular approach.

What is a Community Land Trust?

The Community Land Trust has a long history: it has been widely adopted throughout the world in both developed and developing countries. CLTs are non-profit community-led organisations that develop and manage homes that are affordable to low and median income households, as well as other social infrastructure which support local communities. They act as long-term stewards of these assets, ensuring they remain permanently accessible for generations to come.

Over time, the Community Land Trust model has evolved based on three founding principles. Firstly, its organisational structure determines its democratic three-partite governance. Since it is managed by CLT residents, other residents, experts and stakeholders, the CLT is community and neighbourhood oriented. Secondly, its ownership structure defines the “relationship between the individual and the land:” land is owned or governed collectively. Thirdly, its operational structure “balances forces between the commitment to building wealth and the preservation of affordability.” This feature refers to control mechanisms such as resale formulas and allocation criteria.

Despite these rich origins and the evolution of the model over time, the synergy between the Community Land Trust and the circular economy has yet to be explored. The opportunity has emerged through work And The People have been conducting to set up the first Dutch CLT, in the Bijlmer, a neighbourhood in the southeast of Amsterdam. Working within the context of Amsterdam’s circularity ambitions, we believe that the CLT has the correct characteristics to address and overcome some of the systemic barriers that hinder inclusive circular neighbourhood development. To test this assumption, we have conducted an action-research project and developed a series of place-based business models for goods and services that generate social and environmental value.

Three challenges for the doughnut model in city development

To determine how to operationalize the doughnut model in city development, we asked several experts in the field of city-making about their insights, experiences, systemic barriers and promising solutions. From these interviews, we identified three main challenges in the implementation of a more inclusive and circular neighbourhood and housing model. We then illustrate how the CLT model can bring opportunities and added value(s) to these challenges.

Challenge 1: How to embed longevity in our urban development models

In its basis, the circular economy forces us to think long term rather than short term. Current development models focus on short term profits and fail to take into account long term issues or consequences. One of the challenges with taking a long term perspective on neighbourhood development and housing is the dynamic nature of cities: ownership of properties tends to change rapidly. For this reason, it is difficult to develop new business models without enhancing the risks that a future owner cannot comply with contract requirements. Even non-profits organisations such as housing corporations are not legally bound to keep their properties at a certain location and often lack the ability to truly embed local interests.

“With the right types of legal models and also economic incentives in a co-operative model, there’s less risk of strategic shift in the long term.” (Gerard Roemers)

The CLT model, on the other hand, is perfectly suited for this new interpretation of time: one of its core traits is that the CLT remains a permanent owner of the land and is bound to a specific neighbourhood. By perpetually owning the land and retaining financial flows at a certain locality, circular business cases which require longer time spans to make financial sense are created. Moreover, this model fosters intergenerational thinking, as the CLT organisation is forced to take into account the long-term stewardship of a specific place.

Challenge 2: How can we consolidate existing social capital in neighbourhood and community assets in our urban development models?

In an inclusive circular economy, resource and community values should be retained as long as possible. Current development models prioritise ‘adding’ values to neighbourhoods in return for monetary returns above enhancing current values from which people benefit. For these reasons, housing prices are driven up and present communities are pushed away. This process, in turn, prevents local assets from effective use and hinders the enhancement of enhancing circular thinking in neighbourhoods.

“There can be great value in ugly things. New is not always better and something can have many different kind of values besides just the aesthetics.” (Salomé Galjaard)

By contrast, the CLT takes the existing community and its capacities, values and needs as the starting point for development. In doing so, it pushes through a fundamental shift in thinking when it comes to city development, i.e. to take what already exists as the starting point. Moreover, the CLT’s unique ownership structure and never-ending commitment to the neighbourhood ensure that profits from improvements benefit its people.

Challenge 3: How can we facilitate new models for cooperation between public, private and societal parties?

Currently, housing development is either organized top-down through large tendering procedures for housing corporations and private developers or bottom-up by local initiatives like self-building and small housing cooperatives. Both approaches are not ideal when it comes to encouraging and ensuring inclusivity and cooperation.

While bottom-up approaches can be very inclusive, they often lack the power to push through and scale up circular initiatives on a neighbourhood scale. In addition, we usually find that these groups of people are composed of people with significant networks and cultural capital. Top-down approaches, on the other hand, have the oversight and power to thoroughly work with new circular initiatives, but often lack a real inclusive approach due to the high stakes involved in large projects: residents and local parties can thereby never have a real say in the development process. Next to this, this development process is not conducive to the enabling of partnerships that boost the local cooperative economy by community wealth building.

“Cooperatives are achieving something that the market would never provide. But there are few possibilities for the commons in the current process of neighbourhood development. New ownership models for land and buildings are needed to facilitate the shift.” (Tineke Lupi)

The CLT, however, can act as the “in-between approach” we need, focussing on synergizing the best of both worlds by finding new ways of working together. Due to the involvement of local parties and the municipality in the CLT governance structure, the CLT is a professional player with more capacities than many current initiatives. Thanks to its governance model, the residents, neighbourhood and common interests are well balanced. Ultimately, then, the CLT model acts as a more inclusive platform for cooperation.

These three exemplary challenges in common urban development practice illustrate why and how new development models are needed to transition towards a more fair, just and circular economy. What’s more, we are determined that the CLT model is able to overcome the challenges we currently face.

We are curious to know what you think about our proposal for the CLT ownership model to work in Amsterdam, and we hereby invite you to respond and join us in support of moving CLT forwards.

This project is enabled by funding from Stimuleringsfonds, Interegg NWE Sustainable Housing for Inclusive and Cohesive Cities (SHICC) and Gemeente Amsterdam, as well as contributions in kind from And The People, Space&Matter and New Economy. If you would like to get involved in our next steps please reach out to us at contact@cooperate.eco