221A Launches Cultural Land Trust

221A Launches Cultural Land Trust

December 5, 2023

In the pursuit of giving artists access to affordable rent and building community wealth, 221A has been working on Cultural Land Trust (CLT), a land trust for cultural assets that will open pathways to sustainable stewardship and ownership.

With interest in building relationships with fellow land trust organizers and other non-profit organizations 221A presented CLT at Chinatown Reimagined, Canadian Network of Community Land Trusts Summit and Social Purpose Real Estate Summit. We gained insights from those facing similar challenges and opportunities in the relatively new landscape of land trusts in Canada including our neighbours at Hogan’s Alley Society and DTES Community Land Trust.

“CLT is pulling from historical precedents to scale community land governance and support Indigenous sovereignty,” says Carmut Me 米家宓, 221A Head of Cultural Spaces R&D, referring to the history of Chinatown family associations to the first land trust established by Black farmers in the US. ”And we can now think about how to evolve that to work for artists.”

We invite you to explore our strategies, case studies and models that we are inspired by and learn more about our next steps through the launch of our new website for CLT.

Play video

Watch From Ownership to Stewardship: tools and opportunities to build civic commons from the Chinatown Reimagined Forum. Featuring Brian McBay, 221A Executive Director alongside Chiyi Tam, Toronto Chinatown Land Trust, Laurent Levesque, UTILE: Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant and moderated by Moderated by Kevin Huang, Hua Foundation.