How to Grow a Local Land Trust

Robin Cline Assistant Director

Miriam AvinsExecutive Director

Baltimore

1950

950,000

Baltimore

since

1950s…

Baltimore

2010

621,000

Community-Managed Open Spaces by Area

Community Managed Land Use in Chicago

Chicago Park

District

Forest Preserve District of

Cook County

NeighborSpace

6062Tree

Little Village

This is not about community gardening. It's not. -Ms. Mary Peery

This is like a sanctuary. People won’t mess with you in here.

People have a tendency to be blind about really what’s going on with life. Here you can help each other grow and heal with a lot of the oppression that people go through.

Riverbank Neighbors

Hoxie Prairie

Merchant Park

Community-Managed Open Spaces in Baltimore

Two “Generations” of Land Trust

Chicago• founded 1996• 100+ sites protected• strong government involvement• government funded/ long term• new focuses:-stewarding the steward -neighborhood networks-new leadership models-new models of outdoor space

Baltimore • founded 2007• 7 sites protected• grassroots

• fellowship to start

• additional areas: - advocacy- forest patches

The Role of the Land Trust –Generation 1

The View from Baltimore

Preservation in a Land TrustResidents care for the site, the land trust owns the land

• no worries about development• basic liability insurance• technical assistance

4 Criteria

• Request comes from the community

• Community can maintain the site for the long term

• Site really benefits the neighborhood

• Match between the soil and how the site is used

The Process

• BGS meets with Site Manager and others.

• Application filled out. Goes to board.• Research. Another board vote.• Acquisition.• Land sold by City for $1 per lot.• Celebration! Insurance! Annual visit!

Technical Assistance!

Start your Own Land Trust• Just like any other nonprofit (at least in Maryland). Learn specific rules in your state.• Find a starting board. Incorporate. Join the Land Trust Alliance for insurance and standards. Start to figure out how you will operate.• Find your allies! Figure out how you will acquire land, or what your model is.

The Role of the Land Trust –Generation 2

The View from Chicago

Land Trust- Generation Two –Chicago, 20 years later.....

Ginkgo Organic Garden, Uptown

Growing Home, Engelwood

El Paseo, Pilsen

Stewardship Clinic!!

cc

•03/15/15•Empty Lot On 23rd street and Whipple

Main Community Partners:

Community Links High School Our Lady of Tepeyac Head Start-Catholic CharitiesAdvisory Board of Parents, Teen Youth, and Teachers -In Association with Land TrustsNeighbor-Space and Trust for Public Land

•General Approach and Feel

c

Little Village is a place in Chicago with very little open space.

We recognize an important requirement of healthy communities isconsistent access to natural play spaces.

By providing children and their care-givers with spaces designed to child-initiated discovery,

we help build a foundation of resilience, a sense of wonder,

and future stewards of the earth.

“That experience of trying it and then the immediate thought of ‘well next year I’ll…’ simply opens up time. And it opens up life and it opens up hope. Whatever’s going on today, there’s always next year.”

Technical Assistance Clinic