Community control as a relationship between a place-based population and institution: The case of a community land trust

Abstract

Community control is a concept used to identify and promote efforts at collective resource ownership as a response to heightened inequality and capital mobility. The term has been used widely in political and theoretical discourses since the 1960s, but there is no clear consensus on its definition or the practical possibilities of how it can be actualized, particularly in the contemporary era of neoliberal fiscal austerity. In this paper, a case study of Rondo Community Land Trust in Saint Paul, MN is used to theorize community control as an interaction between a place-based population and an institution with authority over a shared resource. The Rondo neighborhood’s history of displacement, impending threat of gentrification, and civic leadership inspired visions for a commercial land trust development by a neighborhood leader. Rondo Community Land Trust’s history as a neighborhood-based organization, its participatory board structure, and its need for organizational diversification, and relationships with funders and other nonprofit groups made it a receptive vehicle for the proposal. The resulting “community control” of the project development was a collaboration between Rondo Community Land Trust and a group of neighborhood property owners. Neighborhood residents favored their commercial land trust proposal over a developer-led proposal for the same lot. If the neighborhood residents had been more broadly mobilized, the level of community control may have been more participatory, but Rondo Community Land Trust’s capacity to initiate community organizing was limited, so the resulting community control was driven by key leaders in the neighborhood with the support of Rondo Community Land Trust.