Evaluating the Dissociation of Land Value from Homeownership in a Community Land Trust: Implications for Sustainable Housing Affordability

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) separate land ownership from homeownership to reduce housing costs and preserve affordability over time. This paper examines the Giulio34 CLT in Turin (Italy) as a sustainability-oriented housing innovation, through an exploratory case study structured around three dimensions: access value, retention value and social value. The analysis combines local housing data, project documents, interviews and market-price estimates. Findings show that the exclusion of land value from the transaction produces proposed access prices approximately 25% below comparable full-ownership values. Resale restrictions, surface rights and purchase options are designed to preserve this advantage across future transfers, while collective financing and neighbourhood-oriented spaces extend benefits beyond individual households. By linking land-value retention, adaptive reuse and community-oriented governance, the case frames housing affordability as a component of urban social sustainability rather than as a narrow price-reduction issue. However, retention and social value remain only partly observable because the project is still in its initial implementation phase. The case suggests that CLTs can create credible institutional conditions for long-term affordability, although their effectiveness depends on governance, stewardship and the practical operation of resale mechanisms.