Oakland Community Land Trust

Community Stabilization Through Resident-Led Housing Preservation

Model and Strategy

The Oakland Community Land Trust (OakCLT) expands and preserves housing and economic development opportunities for Black, Latinx, Asian, other communities of color, and low-income residents of Oakland. We acquire housing, land, and other critical community-serving real estate and steward them in trust to ensure that they remain affordable forever. We also create innovative shared-equity ownership structures that balance the needs of individuals and families to build wealth with the long-term goal of permanently preserving affordability. Over the next two years, OakCLT will further develop and refine a menu of permanently affordable homeownership options that aligns with the reality of existing and emerging housing typologies, and meets the actual needs of residents and tenants of Oakland. These include: - Condo Conversion: Over 52 percent of Oakland’s existing housing stock is in buildings with more than one unit, yet viable opportunities for owner occupancy — particularly for low-income households — are almost exclusively limited to the single-family context. OakCLT will refine a condo conversion pathway that exclusively creates permanently affordable ownership opportunities in partnership with existing tenants. - Limited-Equity Cooperative Homeownership: Successful models for limited-equity cooperative homeownership in multi-unit buildings are prevalent throughout the east coast but have never fully taken root on the west coast, despite the latent possibilities. OakCLT has several multi-unit projects where tenants have organized in partnership with the land trust to develop a transition plan to cooperative ownership of their buildings. - Split Ownership: In neighborhoods where single-family homes predominate, the changing policy landscape in Oakland and California is allowing increased density through accessory dwelling units and as-of-right lot splits. OakCLT has multiple current projects where creative split- ownership scenarios for properties with accessory dwelling units could be possible, and we are actively developing a pilot project to operationalize shared ownership in these contexts. In all our work we follow the leadership and organizing of residents who are actively facing displacement or eviction struggles. Instead of looking for prime development sites or opportunities, OakCLT is in search of deep partnership with existing Oakland residents; we only pursue projects where OakCLT is invited in by residents to be their partner.

Impact

The 23rd Avenue Community Building, a vibrant mixed-use cultural hub in Oakland’s Lower San Antonio neighborhood consisting of eight apartments, four storefronts housing community-serving nonprofit organizations, and a community garden.
An innovative financing and acquisition that OakCLT made happen with worker-owned cooperative café Hasta Muerte, resulting in two permanently affordable apartments for low-income families and a commercial space that will always house community-serving organizations.
Project image 1

Leadership

  • Steve

    Steve King

    Executive Director

  • Clint

    Clint Bolden

    Organizational Director

  • Anne

    Anne Griffith

    Community Director

  • Phoenix

    Phoenix Mangrum

    Resident Director

  • Shamar

    Shamar Theus

    Resident Director

  • Shekinah

    Shekinah Samaya-Thomas

    Resident Director

  • Junious

    Junious Williams

    Organizational Director

  • Sasha

    Sasha Werblin

    Community Director