State-Led Commons? Rethinking Housing Affordability Through Community Land Trusts

Abstract

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) have emerged as alternative housing models mainly taken up by civil society organizations aiming to de-commodify land and ensure long-term affordable housing, while fostering participatory democratic governance and (re)claiming the right to homeownership. Drawing on empirical evidence from the CLT in Leuven (Belgium) and research conducted between November 2022 and February 2025, this study examines state-led CLTs and their potential in providing affordable housing and democratizing housing systems. The leading role of local authorities serves as a catalyst facilitating access to land and resources while setting up democratic and collaborative governance processes towards the creation of housing commons. However, their involvement introduces market mechanisms that undermine long-term affordability. This research mobilizes the literature on commons and commoning, housing affordability debates and governance theories to explore the paradox of state-led CLTs: Can they democratize housing governance, or does state involvement inevitably reinforce the market mechanisms they seek to counteract? The paper argues that states can initiate commons without fully co-opting them, provided governance is polycentric and reflexive. The contribution of state-led housing commons lies not in radical rupture but in incremental decommodification and emergent commoning, showing how commons can evolve within capitalist states.

1. Introduction

The affordability of housing in Europe is increasingly under threat, exacerbated by the dominance of a housing market embedded in global neoliberal economies, which fails to provide equitable housing solutions for ‘all’. The expansion of market-driven housing finance models has profoundly undermined the right to adequate housing, fueling what is widely recognized as a global housing affordability crisis [1,2]. Additional pressures arise from accelerated urbanization dynamics, land scarcity, aging housing stock, policy-driven demands for improved energy efficiency, increased rents, taxes and mortgage payments [3,4]. All of these result in cost-burdened households placing financial strain on homeowners and prospective buyers, while further (re)producing inequalities in a landscape shaped by a few ‘winners’ and increasing excluded classes [5]. In response, the European Union and its member states have implemented various measures including the expansion of social housing, rent control policies, housing subsidies for low-income families, and cooperation with NGOs to prevent evictions [6]. However, such policies fail to address the root causes of the crisis, as they merely alleviate symptoms rather than challenging the underlying structures of the housing system.

At the heart of the issue lies the ‘financialization of housing,’ whereby housing is no longer treated as a fundamental human need but rather as a financial asset and investment vehicle [7]. The state works hand in hand with the market, developing a complex network of financial institutions, corporate investors, and policy frameworks that drive this phenomenon. The state–market nexus leverages mechanisms such as mortgages, securitization, pension funds, and real estate investment trusts, shaping access to housing based on speculative priorities rather than local needs. The financialization of housing is further underpinned by the institutional power of private property ‘enshrined in law and enforced by the state’ [8] (p. 115). As a result, the current ‘market/state duopoly’ [9] enables the transformation of land and housing into an instrument for capital accumulation reinforcing exclusionary housing markets and perpetuating inequalities that prioritize financial returns over social well-being [7,10,11]. This shift has detached housing from its social function, embedding it within the broader global financial system, where market logic dictates availability, affordability, and tenure security.

While states struggle to mediate between global economic forces and housing needs, communities of active citizens self-organize to address the unaffordability of real estate markets and fight against the financialization of land [12]. These initiatives, usually led by local communities, organizations with an activist approach or multi-actor partnerships, develop alternative housing (tenure) schemes, such as cooperative housing, community land trusts, co-living spaces and eco-neighborhoods/districts [13,14,15]. These dynamics are often manifested in forms of housing commons, which encourage residents to actively participate in decision-making around housing, enabling them to shape their living environments according to their needs. Housing commons can, hence, be defined as ‘long-term affordable, participatory and collective housing goods’ created, used, organized and reproduced by (ideally) heterogeneous communities based on principles of solidarity and land decommodification [16] (p. 1152). Commoners move beyond private property limitations to reclaim and defend the right to housing. By involving residents in housing planning, development, and management, these initiatives foster a sense of ownership and belonging, ultimately enhancing social inclusion and cohesion. Moreover, housing commons as shared spaces, promote collaborative and solidarity-based governance to safeguard socio-spatial justice against the financialization of housing.

Housing commons emerge through a complex interplay of actors, institutions, and legal mechanisms. Banks, landowners, and housing developers interact with state actors and organizations, alongside the active—and often leading—role of civil society members in maneuvering and reshaping housing policies and regulatory frameworks. This dynamic interplay reflects the intricate relationship between commons, the state, and the market [17], where competing logics—profit, public interest, and community empowerment—intersect and often clash. Within these governance structures, the role of the state ranges from a facilitator to a coordinator or regulator [14] with its level of intervention influencing the viability and sustainability of housing alternatives. While states can provide resources, legal recognition, and scalability, they also risk constraining community empowerment by imposing bureaucratic and market-driven limitations. Although they often promote regulatory capitalism fostering a profit-oriented, market-mediated mode of housing production [18], states also have the capacity to initiate their own forms of housing commons. This paper therefore asks: To what extent and how do state-led housing commons democratize governance to address housing unaffordability and defend the right to housing?

To address this question, we build on the literature on commons and commoning, dialoguing with theories of governance and Strategic Relational Institutionalism (SRI) to unfold the nexus, interdependence and multilayered interactions between state and commons. We draw empirical data on the case of the Community Land Trust Leuven (CLTL) in Belgium, an ongoing initiative led by local authorities since 2019. Collaborating and interacting with the CLTL coordinator and board members since November 2022, the authors gained valuable insights into the development of a housing commons from its inception. This exchange allowed them to observe the challenges, conflicting logics between state–market structures and commoning principles, and the ongoing efforts required to develop and sustain a CLT project.

Therefore, the paper makes a threefold contribution (a theoretical, an empirical and a methodological). Theoretically, it advances debates on the role of the state in commons governance by moving beyond state-centered views that presume fixed institutional designs. Introducing incremental decommodification and institutional hacking, it shows how CLTs can tactically leverage state support while resisting both market capture and state domination. Drawing on SRI, the paper highlights hybridity as a constitutive feature of housing commons and examines how statecraft and commoning can evolve into symbiotic forms that generate new governance norms oriented toward the collective good. Empirically, it offers one of the first in-depth analyses of the Leuven CLT, tracing how governance arrangements, funding mechanisms, and political alignments both enable and constrain its operation as a commons. Methodologically, it demonstrates the value of embedded, real-time observation in accessing negotiations and dilemmas often inaccessible to researchers. Together, these contributions offer a nuanced understanding of how housing commons emerge, adapt, and potentially persist within the state–market apparatus.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1. Conceptual Shifts in Commons Literature

2.1.1. From Resource Management to (Re)Claimed Rights

Dominant conceptualizations of commons, influenced by Ostrom’s foundational work [19], have traditionally framed them as a set of resources collectively managed under negotiated rules and institutional arrangements. Following this perspective, commons initially fell into specific—yet diverse—categories of governance systems associated with clearly defined resource boundaries, a specific community and structured management rules outlining rights and responsibilities. However, contemporary scholarship expands this view, positioning commons not merely as resource-management systems but as socio-political processes involving self-organization, rights claims, and resistance against enclosure, commodification, and exclusion [20,21]. Commons are thus dynamic formations shaped by historical and contemporary efforts to claim—or claim back—collective rights and resist state/market encroachments.

Focusing primarily on resources within commons can be misleading [22], as it often prioritizes the protection of the resource itself over the rights of the people dependent on it. As Ivan Illich [23] (p. 3) aptly describes: “By definition, resources call for defense by police. Once they are defended, their recovery as commons becomes increasingly difficult.” While Ostrom pointed to the ‘bundle of rights’ over common-pool resources [24,25], political ecology scholars have since reframed these rights as relational and thus deeply political [26] (p. 797). In this view, property claims within commons are embedded in dynamic systems of social relations and human–nature interdependences; they emerge and are constantly dependent on counter claims and competing interests [27]. Historically, commons emerged due to these well-acknowledged interdependences, where state authority and interest in resource governance were absent [28,29,30]. As such, commons were often treated by the state as distinct legal entities and institutional forms that shape access to resources floating between public and private regimes.

Today, the resource-focused approach persists, with states assuming authority in assigning property rights to prevent overexploitation—a logic rooted in Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons”. However, under neoliberalism, the state fails to fulfill its safeguarding role and, instead, increasingly delegates resource management to the market, transforming resources and goods into commodities with exchange values. This shift strips resources of their embedded value system (including social, cultural, use value, etc.) necessitating a new form of protection; one that safeguards not just resources but also the right of communities to access and manage them and the relational values around them [31]. This calls for a socio-political protection against the financialization of ‘nature’s services’ [32] (p. 76).

The case of housing commons exemplifies these challenges: while land is often framed as the resource requiring protection, the real struggle lies in defending the right to affordable housing. Since state and market increasingly assert control over land and housing, commons emerge as dynamic, community-driven formations that reclaim the right to housing through resistance and establishment of ‘situation-specific’ systems of provisioning [32] (p. 75), [33,34,35]. By shifting the focus from resource preservation to fundamental rights, commons discourses move beyond traditional governance frameworks to challenge exclusionary policies and reimagine housing as an open, generative, and participatory model of socio-political organization [36,37]. Some scholars advocate for legal recognition of a ‘right to commoning’—a fundamental right enabling individuals to engage in practices based on trust, cooperation, and mutuality [38]. This right is increasingly seen as a precondition for securing other human rights, such as access to food, work, a healthy environment, and decent housing [37].

2.1.2. From ‘Fixed’ Communities to Dynamic Commoning and Governance Configurations

The shift from commons as fixed resource pools to broader socio-political and economic systems is further reinforced by the conceptual shift from ‘commons’ to ‘commoning’ as an active dynamic process [22]. Commons are not static arrangements managed by predefined communities; rather, they emerge and evolve through commoning, a continuous process of self-organization, rights-claiming, and collective action to (re)generate wealth and socio-ecological values [39,40]. In this sense, commons and communities are always in a state of becoming [41,42]; fluid and dynamic formations, constituted and reconstituted through shared practices, and relational politics ingrained in the action of commoning [43,44]. Moulaert et al. [45] (p. 96) further caution against reducing commoning to bringing land into common use and governance, arguing that such a narrow perspective obscures the core nature of commons, which lies in ‘social relations and their relational politics’. In other words, commons are not just about sharing but about constructing alternative socio-economic relations and socio-political systems which hold a transformative potential. They set up ‘heteropolitics’, a form of counter-hegemonic, more democratic, egalitarian politics based on openness, diversity, inclusiveness and horizontal, non-hierarchical self-government [46]. Moulaert, Simmons and Parra [47] (p. 148), building on Ostromian theory, political ecology and anarchist literature, emphasize that community building, in this context, lies in continuous cooperation linked to organizational structures and self-governance, which builds collective power and allows reimagining the political from communities up.

The process of community building carries great weight due to the diversity of actors and interests at stake, all striving to integrate shared claims into the governance arena. Having as a point of departure a shared vision for the co-production of services, citizens, local governments and market actors engage in participatory and negotiated decision making, which gradually transcends top-down hierarchies towards more inclusive and socially just modes of governance. Governance here is not merely about enforcing rules but about facilitating ongoing negotiations, resource-sharing, and adaptability in response to shifting needs and power dynamics [48]. Following Jessop [49] (p. 53), this paper approaches governance as a “reflexive self-organization based on continuing dialogue and resource-sharing” among interacting actors and networks to develop mutually beneficial strategies and “to manage the contradictions and dilemmas inevitably involved in such situations”. More specifically, commons-based governance operates through polycentric systems that evolve through commoning—a process that fosters cooperation, equity, and shared responsibility [20,50,51].

In housing commons, context-specific coalitions of civil society actors, state representatives, real estate developers, landowners, lawyers, and NGOs reconfigure socio-economic relations to re-define modes of production and defend the right to housing by generating more inclusive systems of housing governance. Kioupkiolis [52] (p. 187) builds on what Stout and Love [53] name ‘integrative governance’ to argue that: “this modality of governance adheres to a pragmatist epistemology, whereby truths are tested in practice according to how they further collective objectives and life. It cultivates a relational ethic of mutual care, and it affirms that individuals co-create their political, economic, and social relationships through mutual coordination and cooperation.” Through commoning, governance becomes a transformative social paradigm, continuously reshaped by the actions, decisions, and collective agency of those involved [32,54,55]. The communities become themselves a means of reclaiming autonomy over life and subsistence, cultivating self-determined, regenerative governance systems that challenge capitalist enclosures and exclusionary decision-making [56].

2.2. The Role of the State in Commons Governance

The relationship between the state and commons is one of interdependence, where the state provides the broader institutional, economic, and legal context in which commons are embedded [57,58,59,60]. This embeddedness shapes the conditions under which commons can emerge and thrive (or not), either fostering their development or constraining them through regulatory and economic barriers [61]. However, the role of the state in commons governance is highly contested, with perspectives ranging from approaching the state as an enabling partner to claiming the complete autonomy of commoning ‘beyond’ or ‘despite’ state structures.

Some scholars advocate for a ‘partner state’ or ‘enabling state’ approach, where the state actively supports commons by providing institutional, political, and economic resources to enhance self-organized governance [32,54,62]. This model suggests that the state does not necessarily compete with commons but can facilitate their growth by offering legal recognition, financial support, and strategic guidance. In contrast, ‘no-state’ perspectives, rooted in anarchist traditions, view the state and commons as fundamentally incompatible realities. The state is seen as inherently hierarchical, extractivist, and predicated on individualism, making it structurally opposed to the solidarity, equality, and generative principles that define commons-based governance [39,63]. For De Angelis and Harvie [39], the state is structurally aligned with capitalist social relations and, as such, its involvement tends to reduce commons to managed enclaves within a broader capitalist totality. Stavrides [63] adds a spatial-political critique, highlighting the state’s inherently hierarchical logic, which imposes fixed identities and boundaries, whereas commons emerge through open-ended, inclusive, and porous relations reflecting the prefigurative ethos of commoning. From this perspective, commons flourish only when they operate independently of state authority, relying instead on situated and relational forms of governance that resist top-down bureaucratic control [37,64,65].

The different roles attributed to the state in commons governance—whether as a partner, enabler, regulator, or opponent—are shaped by how the state is conceptualized within different theoretical traditions. Institutionalist political economy perspectives, for instance, view the state as an embedded governance structure that shapes economic and social interactions, enabling or hindering commons through legal, financial, and policy support [33,57,58,59]. In contrast, Marxist and post-capitalist theories see the state as an instrument of capital accumulation, often co-opting or undermining commons through regulatory mechanisms that serve market interests [66,67]. While some scholars acknowledge the strategic role of the state, they highlight its complicity in privatization and commodification processes. More radical or anarchist voices focus on the ontological incompatibility between states and commons. They juxtapose the states’ inherently hierarchical structures and homogenized order to commons’ self-organization based on pluralistic situated practices [23,37,68]. Property-wise, clashes are also detected between states’ exclusive rights shaped by the public/private dichotomy versus shared, non-exclusive and enriched notions of stewardship. However, the relational ontology of commons and commoning calls for a nuanced approach and analysis of state dynamics far from categorizing it as an enabler, a co-opting force, or an obstacle to commons-based governance.

This paper builds on Strategic Relational Institutionalism (SRI) to analyze the state as a dynamic and evolving system of power rather than a fixed monolithic actor. It is constituted through political practices, agendas, and institutional conditions that shape and reproduce social relations [69,70,71,72]. The state functions as an ensemble of power centers and institutional capacities that provide unequal opportunities for various social forces, including both hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggles [70]. It does not inherently exercise power but serves as a site of political representation [71,73]. It is embedded and operates within global economic frameworks that shape its governance strategies and authority constraining or redirecting its actions. Understanding the state, therefore, requires analyzing the interplay of local and global forces that continuously redefine its role.

In this context, state and commons are not fixed entities, but emergent institutions shaped by ongoing interactions and relationships. State and commons define each other dialectically. This means that commons often emerge in response to state failures, while states can support and formalize commons or set up hybrid institutions to host ongoing negotiations—see for example [74]. They can also be conflictual and incompatible; incompatibility being not inherent, in this case, but situational. Rather, their friction emerges from historically specific power struggles, wherein states alternately co-opt, suppress, or codify commons, and commons strategically navigate, resist, or reshape state structures. Thus, incompatibility is a political struggle, not an ontological given. The adoption of a SRI approach interrogates the conditions by which statecraft and commoning clash or collaborate, and the ways by which they mutate into symbiotic forms. Building on this perspective, the paper analyzes housing commons, especially as experienced in Community Land Trusts, to delve into social and power relations and community building dynamics unfolding the process of commoning and the agency of the state.

2.3. Community Land Trusts: From Housing Commons to Commoning (In) Governance

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are a form of housing commons, which attempt to remove land from the speculative market, and establish collective ownership to ensure long-term affordability. In a CLT, land is treated as a common good, owned and managed by a non-profit legal body (usually a trust) on behalf of the community, while buildings or apartments are owned separately by individuals, who are leasing the land in a long-term agreement [75]. This separation of land and building ownership helps keeping housing affordable. Moreover, CLTs are characterized by a horizontal and democratic governance structure, where decision-making is shared equally among residents, representatives of public authorities, civil society actors, and other community members [14,76,77]. Decoupling land from its productive use while leveraging state law to consolidate both collective rights to land and individual anti-speculative ownership of housing [14,78], makes CLT a compelling model for housing commons.

CLTs further illustrate the challenging diversity of actors involved in building a housing commons. Initially, individuals come together to claim their right to land and affordable housing. Over time, the CLT evolves into a multi-stakeholder model involving diverse actors who contribute to the development, governance and sustainability of the housing project. From civil society, local activists, NGOs and advocacy groups often engage with a CLT initiative to provide technical, organizational as well as political support. Financial actors and institutions are necessary and range from investors (public, private lenders or charity funds), social and ethical banks and real-estate developers. They assist in project implementation through the provision of low-interest and soft loans, investment capital, and other grants to realize land acquisition, initial project costs and housing construction. Their interest in joining the CLT also varies and can be financial or socio-political. The specificities of the constellation of actors involved in a CLT, priorities set, and internal as well as external power dynamics affect the very nature of the CLT as a housing commons. As Durose et al. [77] explain, some CLTs emerge out of the need of communities to participate in decision making enriching community politics, while others aim for an asset-lock that will contribute to affordable housing. The different types and claims of CLTs depend on several factors ranging from the actors involved and community engagement to the level of dependence on the state and the market [77].

In this paper, we focus on the role of the state in the development and governance of CLTs and the way its involvement affects the core principles of housing commons. Local governments may facilitate access to land, transferring plots to a CLT under long-term leasing agreements. State’s involvement further includes the provision of funding, grants, or subsidies to support the acquisition and development of land for CLTs. When it comes to community building, the state might play the role of commons initiator and regulator producing housing for residents or the enabler and facilitator when housing is developed mainly by residents [17,79,80]. While there are many successful CLTs with little government involvement, in high-cost cities, a concomitant strong support by the state is necessary to ensure long-term housing affordability [74,81]. However, tensions emerge due to—among other reasons—the different approaches of affordability. For state organizations, housing affordability is traditionally understood as the ratio of housing costs to household income, with a commonly accepted threshold of 30% of income used to determine affordability [82]. In this context, affordable housing refers to housing options available at below-market rates, often provided through social housing programs or public–private partnerships [79,83,84]. In the context of housing commons, and hence CLTs, housing affordability is redefined pointing to radical changes in the system of access to land, tenure diversification and security. Also, structural inequalities are addressed and housing solutions beyond market logics are sought.

While municipalities may offer financial and legal support to facilitate collaborative governance schemes for housing commons, the role of the state remains inherently contradictory: it can simultaneously enable and constrain commoning processes. On the one hand, bureaucratic structures and market-driven policies may limit commoners’ autonomy in co-production [14]. On the other hand, strategic state support is often indispensable for scaling affordability in high-cost urban contexts [81]. This tension is crystallized in what Aernouts and Ryckewaert [14] term ‘differential commoning’, a practice of navigating state–market logics while preserving collective ownership, democratic governance, and long-term affordability. Governance theories mobilized in commons scholarship further illuminate this duality: whereas government dominated governance centralizes authority within state hierarchies and participatory models decentralize decision-making, ‘commoning governance’ [85] seeks to re-design institutions themselves. While conceptual frameworks around participatory and collaborative governance might be constrained within state-centered logics taking for granted pre-existing institutional designs, commoning (in) governance allows for an inventive implementation of commons principles in decision-making to create new norms that serve the collectively defined common good. What is more, value- and ethics- oriented governance modes are incorporated. Here, Jessop’s [71,73,86] framework of reflexive self-organization becomes pivotal, positing governance as an ongoing negotiation that relies on dialogue, shared resources, and solidarity to resist both the hierarchy of command (that characterizes the state) and the anarchy of exchange (that characterizes the market).

These competing dynamics raise the critical question that this paper aims to address: To what extent can the state support and engage in a commoning process and radically redesign its own institutions, i.e., itself, to serve the materialization of housing commons? Delving into context-specific governance configurations and analyzing the commoning process throughout the development of a state-led CLT allows casting light on power dynamics to assess whether the commons output is collective, non-commodified and challenges market exchange and valuation system.

3. Case Study and Methodology

3.1. The Belgian and Flemish Housing System

Belgium’s housing system has historically prioritized homeownership; a trend rooted in 19th-century policies shaped by the country’s Catholic identity and industrialization. Early housing policies sought to address urbanization challenges, such as poor living conditions and social unrest, by promoting suburbanization rather than expanding social housing options. The 1889 Housing Law marked the beginning of policies encouraging working-class homeownership, which was framed as an individualized solution to housing affordability, binding industrial workers to the system through loans [87]. In 1980, housing policy was decentralized to the three regions (Flanders, Brussels, and Wallonia) each developing independent strategies to address unaffordability and housing quality. While regional governments play a central role, the federal government retains influence through rental market regulations and fiscal policies.

Flanders’ housing affordability policy is shaped by the 1997 Flemish Housing Code, which emphasizes the constitutional right to decent housing (based on Article 23 of the Belgian Constitution) prioritizing low-income households. The region relies on rental subsidies, housing allowances, and social loans to support affordability, yet no statutory definition of affordability exists [88]. Instead, affordability is measured through the rent-to-income ratio, with housing costs considered unaffordable if they exceed 30–40% of disposable income [88]. While Flanders has a high homeownership rate around 70% [89], private tenants face significant affordability challenges, with almost half of them having a housing cost ration of more than 30% [90]. The social housing sector, historically a key affordable housing provider, represents only 6% of the total housing stock, and its expansion has stalled since 2017 due to insufficient subsidies, high renovation costs, and reliance on private rental markets [91]. Demand for social housing is hence rising, with over 150,000 households currently on waiting lists. This increase reflects a spillover of affordability issues from the private rental sector into the social housing system, which is struggling to meet existing needs while operating within a broader, market-oriented housing provision model [92].

3.2. The Particularity of Leuven and the Need for a CLT

In Leuven, the housing crisis is particularly severe, with the city recording the highest housing prices among Flemish provincial capitals. Between 2011 and 2020, urban flight increased from 12% to 17%, with over 56% of residents citing affordability as the primary reason for leaving the city [93]. Additionally, 46% of renters and 14% of homeowners spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs, disproportionately affecting young people, single parents, and lower-income groups [93]. The city of Leuven addresses housing unaffordability through: (1) affordable rental housing provision and (2) affordable homeownership policies. The first category includes social housing, where rents are income-dependent, and affordable rental housing offered below market rates to those on waiting lists [94]. These programs benefit from government subsidies and low-interest loans. However, long waiting lists (5300 households in 2020), financial sustainability issues, and difficulties in acquiring land due to competition with private developers challenge their effectiveness [93]. Affordable homeownership consists of ‘city homes’ and ‘starter homes’, sold below market value with a 20-year owner-occupancy requirement. While facilitating access to homeownership, these homes eventually return to the private market, limiting long-term affordability.

Despite these initiatives, housing demand far exceeds supply, with up to 80% of households qualifying for some form of affordable housing [93]. Therefore, the city of Leuven further looks to alternative approaches seeking for long-term affordability and models that retain housing as a public asset while securing sustainable funding. Following other Belgian cities’ experimentation with CLT projects (mainly Brussels and Ghent), the city of Leuven decided to invest in a CLT seeking to create affordable housing that complements the existing social housing stock. The topic came up in 2014, in the guise of a reunion of several civic societies, and since only the ‘young Green party’ was interested, the idea of the CLT dissolved (interview with H. Verstreken, CLTL coordinator, December 2022). With the elections of 2019, the coalition of the Social-Democratic (Vooruit), the Green (Groen) and the Christian-Democratic (CD&V) political parties came into power, and the alderman of housing, equal opportunities and global policy, Lies Corneillie, brought the idea of the CLT back on the table.

From the side of the city, the first step required to initiate a CLT was to develop a feasibility study. The work was assigned by the Autonomous Municipal Company of Urban Development in Leuven (in Dutch ‘Autonoom Gemeentebedrijf Stadsontwikkeling Leuven’, hereafter AGSL), to the research group Cosmopolis affiliated with the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), which collaborated with representatives of the CLT Brussels. The study identified a critical gap in the existing housing stock that the CLT Leuven (CLTL) project should target and address. The so called ‘missing-middle’ includes households whose incomes are too high for social housing but too low to afford the high property prices in Leuven’s private market [95]. While some may qualify for measures like social loans, they remain priced out of both homeownership and long-term renting. Without intervention, many in this group risk being displaced from the city. The CLTL was therefore set up aiming to offer these residents, often ‘key workers’ in essential sectors such as healthcare, education, retail, and sanitation, an opportunity to remain in Leuven (interview with H. Verstreken, December 2022). Local policymakers support the project as it aligns with broader goals of retaining this vital population, ensuring their continued contribution to the city’s socio-economic fabric while addressing housing affordability challenges in a market-driven system (interview with K. Peeters, housing policy advisor, January 2023).

After the publication of the feasibility study, and the communication of the project to the citizens through ‘participation moments’, on 29 September 2022, the CLTL was founded with the presence of 32 founding members including: lawyers, social and cultural organizations, governmental officers, educational institutions, think tanks, consultants, financial institutions and construction professionals. The CLTL follows a tripartite governance scheme, and an organizational structure tailored to the Belgian legal system, which combines: (1) a non-profit association (Vereniging Zonder Winstoogmerk in Dutch, VZW hereafter) with the board of directors responsible for operational activities, and (2) a foundation of public utility (Stichting van Openbaar Nut in Dutch, SON) holding the land. Initially, the coordinator of the CLT Leuven was employed by the AGSL, the urban development company of the city. Once the non-profit association of the CLTL was established, the coordinator was ‘transferred’ to this organization. This transferring also marked the transition of the CLT from a municipal project to an autonomous legal body (interview with H. Verstreken, February 2025). Following the example of the CLT in Brussels, a cooperative of residents/leaseholders, those who will purchase and own their apartments while leasing the land from the SON, is planned to be established as a third legal body. The first structure and the CLTL board were officially established in 2022 and follow tripartite governance principles: one-third is allocated to city representatives, one-third is for civil society representatives elected and appointed by their respective organizations (members of the CLTL), and one-third is reserved for the residents.

Unlike the majority of CLTs worldwide, the tripartite governance of the CLTL did not materialize out of community negotiations and bottom-up organization. It was a structure suggested by the CLTL coordinator and the board members. The exact legal forms and governance schemes were gradually decided and set up following a series of CLTL board assemblies, consultancy and meetings with other European and Belgian CLT members. Throughout these meetings and interaction moments, a wide network of state and civil society actors emerged each contributing with different expertise, technical and legal knowledge. Despite the diversity of actors involved, the initiative, coordination, CLT planning and starting budget for the implementation of the project were provided by the local authorities. The focus of this paper lies in this state-led nature of the CLTL. In Section 4, we analyze the structural strengths but also potential weaknesses and implications for the housing commons governance as embedded in the broader context of Belgian homeownership on the one hand, and acute housing affordability pressures on the other.

3.3. Case Study Research Approach and Methods

To examine the role of the state in the development of the CLTL, empirical evidence is drawn from fieldwork conducted between November 2022 and May 2023. Our research team collaborated with the CLTL coordinator and members of the CLTL Board to conduct semi-structured interviews and participate in field visits to other CLTs in Belgium and informal discussions. Desk research and document analysis were also conducted to analyze policy documents (City of Leuven Policy Briefs, housing policy plans, AGSL reports), legal frameworks, supporting feasibility studies (Leuven’s housing study, CLTL feasibility study, CLTL target population, allocation criteria) and reports from CLTL meetings and assemblies. Moreover, a co-author of this paper worked as an intern in the CLTL for two-months and was granted access to CLTL assemblies and decision-making moments. The internship played a critical dual role as it allowed informing our research with real-time developments, while further sharing with the CLTL actors first findings and questions arising from our analysis. Follow-up discussions and meetings with the CLTL coordinator took place in October 2023, January 2024 and February 2025. This close collaboration provided a valuable opportunity to observe the commons-building process from its inception, scrutinizing the role of state and non-state actors, the strategic actions undertaken, and the challenges encountered.

Following an iterative and reflexive research methodology [96], we aimed at not only gathering data from research participants but also allowing them to influence the research process. Interviewees were selected through purposive sampling, focusing on those most directly involved in the CLTL process. This included the coordinator, municipal housing officers, civil society representatives sitting on the board, and policy advisors with expertise in housing affordability. Additional interviewees were identified through snowball sampling, expanding our reach to legal and financial advisors. Future residents—whose participation was still limited—were mainly involved through municipality-organized events (such as the CLT Cafés), which we attended as observers and where we engaged in informal conversations with them. The internship further enabled close engagement with the coordinator and board members, granting access to council activities and decision-making arenas rarely open to outsiders. This ‘priviledged’ access provided detailed insights into the negotiations and strategic dilemmas of balancing affordability, governance, and policy requirements. At the same time, such embeddedness raised questions of positionality, which we addressed by triangulating internship findings with documentary sources and independent interviews, and by continuously discussing interpretations within the research team. Through joint problematization moments, research questions and design were co-formulated and adjusted to the interests or both the researchers and the collaborating CLTL actors.

4. Findings

4.1. Collaborative Governance to Initiate the CLTL

The city of Leuven’s commitment to affordable housing led to the inclusion of a CLT in its 2019 Policy Brief (Stad Leuven, 2019). Recognizing the importance of alternative housing models, the municipal government allocated an initial capital of €5 million to support the development of the CLT Leuven. This initiative was driven by a collaborative governance model that gradually involved multiple stakeholders, ensuring democratic decision-making and active participation. The city played a central role in the development of such governance scheme, both as an initiator and facilitator ensuring institutional support and financial backing. The city also provided an administrative structure to oversee the governance process while trying to find a balance between top-down coordination and bottom-up engagement (interview with P. Van Meerbeek from AVANSA Oost-Braband, civil society representative in CLTL, December 2022). Although at the beginning it was a ‘one-person-led’ process mainly driven by the CLTL coordinator employed by the city (and more specifically by the AGSL) to organize and implement the project, it quickly became a collective attempt with diverse actors gradually stepping in.

To build the foundation of CLTL, the city facilitated seven ‘practice rooms’ between October 2021 and June 2022. These collaborative workshops brought together key stakeholders, including city representatives, AGSL, social organizations, researchers, CLT practitioners and housing experts. The workshops focused on drafting governance models, structuring legal frameworks, and defining the operational scope of the CLTL. They incorporated a variety of activities, such as brainstorming sessions, strategic discussions, and hands-on workshops where participants worked on drafting key documents such as the CLTL statute and designing the legal form of the tripartite governance scheme (Figure 1). These sessions supported the development of a shared vision nurturing at the same time an environment of trust and cooperation among stakeholders. Parallel to the practice rooms, the city collaborated with AVANSA Oost-Brabant to organize participation moments, named ‘CLT Cafés’, informal gatherings aimed at introducing the CLT concept to the broader community and looking for interested individuals and potential CLTL residents. These engagements provided valuable insights into citizens’ housing needs and aspirations, reinforcing the participatory nature of the initiative.

The development of CLTL required an inclusive approach, engaging a diverse mix of actors. City representatives and AGSL provided institutional support, regulatory guidance, and ensured financial viability. Community organizations (e.g., AVANSA Oost-Brabant, SAAMO and Commons Lab) played a crucial role in fostering community engagement, ensuring representation of marginalized voices, organizing participatory events and translating the minutes from such events to feedback for the CLTL building process. Representatives from housing organizations were also involved to bridge the gap between residents and policymakers, advocating for affordable housing and tailoring housing models to the needs of specific groups of inhabitants. Architects and urban planners contributed technical expertise to design affordable and sustainable housing solutions. Research institutions (like KU Leuven and Think Tanks) provided research-based insights into urban commoning, governance models, and collaborative decision-making frameworks. Financial institutions (like Triodos Bank) offered expertise in ethical and sustainable investment strategies and looked for financial mechanisms to support CLTL residents as well as ensure affordability of CLTL houses in the long run (interview with B. Paklons, lawyer and CLTL board member, March 2023).

4.2. Land as a Shared Resource and the Right to Affordable Homeownership in Leuven

The Autonomous Municipal Urban Development Agency (AGSL) not only was the main actor to support, lead and implement the CLTL but also assumed the role of construction manager for the pilot project named ‘Kleine Rijsel Fase Two’; this is the first set of 8 CLT apartments to be constructed in the city of Leuven. The location and size of the CLTL plot in Leuven are illustrated in Figure 2, providing a spatial overview of the site where the first CLT apartments are planned. Although AGSL operates as an independent municipal entity, it remains legally affiliated with the city of Leuven through a management agreement. As part of its mandate, AGSL must adhere to a profitability threshold of 3%, which is notably lower than typical rates in private property development. To meet this requirement, AGSL plans to transfer ownership of the land to the CLT through a negotiated sale, likely at a price approximating but remaining below market value.

The horizontal split of ownership is among the strategies incorporated in the CLT to ensure long-term affordability. CLTL enables residents to own their homes while collectively managing land as a shared resource. This means that individuals who buy a house need to cover only the cost of the housing construction and not the land, which decreases the overall housing cost. At the same time, the land owned by the CLT foundation remains outside speculative markets, fostering long-term affordability and community stewardship. To materialize this, two important legal instruments are mobilized. First, the emphyteutic lease (long-term lease) defined under Belgian federal law grants CLTL residents the right to lease land for a period of 99 years, a period which can be continuously renewed maintaining stability for homeowners while preventing land speculation. Residents pay a modest monthly superficies fee (‘canon’), ensuring financial sustainability while reinforcing collective responsibility. If the owner wishes to sell the house, the long-term lease will be dissolved and the CLTL will exercise its right of pre-emption to buy back the property at a value determined by an established resale formula (Community Land Trust Leuven, 2024). Second, the combination of two legal structures, the non-profit foundation (SON) and the not-for-profit association (VZW), is also used to support the governance of this housing model. The foundation guarantees that land remains a permanent common resource, legally restricting its sale or transfer outside the CLT framework. Meanwhile, the association adopts a tripartite governance model, including residents, civil society organizations, and local policymakers, ensuring democratic decision-making and broad stakeholder involvement.

The financial sustainability of CLTL relies on a combination of subsidies, ethical financing, and a ‘rolling fund’ model. The AGSL plays a crucial role in land acquisition, facilitating access to below-market-value land for CLTL projects. Additionally, government-backed social loans and subsidies enable the initial affordability of CLT housing. A key feature of the CLT model is its resale formula, collectively developed by the members of the CLTL board, which prevents excessive price appreciation by capping resale values and returning a significant share of surplus value to the CLT.

The CLTL model presents a transformative approach to housing by shifting ownership from an individualized asset-based model to a community-driven, rights-based approach [97]. “The model challenges the normative position of individual ownership of both land and housing in the Belgian model and imposes restrictions on the degree to which the CLTL house can function as a financial asset” [97] (p. 39). While it upholds the right to homeownership and ensures collective land stewardship, its sustainability relies on continued public support and innovative financial mechanisms. Although CLTL withdraws land from speculative markets, its financial structure is still partially exposed to private investment and interest charges, potentially undermining its goal of long-term affordability. Moreover, the final price and actual affordability of CLT houses depend on land pricing set by AGSL, which remains undetermined. If land costs are too high, the target group may still struggle to afford homeownership. “While the CLTL model fails to challenge the underlying premises of the Belgian homeownership model, it does challenge the individual nature of housing consumption it brought forth” [97] (p. 40).

4.3. The Role of the State in Community Building

The city of Leuven has played a central role in establishing CLTL, not only as a housing initiative but as a mechanism for fostering collaborative governance and participatory decision-making. The top-down approach, while providing necessary institutional and financial backing, has also shaped the nature of community-building and commoning process within the CLTL. From the very first moment, the CLTL initiative was open to all interested actors and organizations in Leuven, who were willing to form part of this endeavor. Although, at the beginning, meetings and supporting events were organized mainly by the CLTL coordinator, as the process evolved and members started stepping in, activities were collectively designed and planned. Apart from the ‘practice rooms’ (described in Section 4.1), ‘CLT Cafés’ were organized as participatory sessions to provide a platform for potential residents to engage with the project offering input on community needs, housing design, and governance priorities. Both the practice rooms and CLT Cafés, as well as board meetings, cultivated the ground for a ‘new’ community to emerge. People were invited to co-shape collective objectives and strategies and co-frame the modalities of CLTL governance. However, some of these sessions remained largely consultative rather than spaces for co-creation, while the participation of future CLT residents was often limited [98].

Despite its inclusive and progressive approach, CLTL faced several challenges in fostering participation and commoning. First, ensuring long-term commitment from interested individuals proved challenging, as some participants lacked time and incentives for their long-term involvement. Second, the city initially resisted granting membership to neighborhood residents due to concerns over potential opposition or misuse of membership for personal gain, such as blocking projects or acquiring buildings in their own backyards (interview with P. Van Meerbeek, December 2022). This led to tensions, as some stakeholders viewed this exclusion as a limitation to the democratic governance and participatory approach initially designed: “It is important to emphasize that membership in the CLT is important and should not be limited to future residents alone. By involving the wider community, we aim to foster a sense of ownership and engagement among all residents, not just those directly affected by the CLT projects.’’ (ibid). Furthermore, while the city played a significant role in initiating CLTL, the dominance of institutional actors risked overshadowing grassroots voices. Ensuring equitable representation and inclusivity required continuous dialogue and brought up claims for the need of future vigilance (interview with VUB researcher, January 2023). In this context, further concerns arose regarding: (1) the long-term sustainability of funding and land allocation, highlighting the need for robust financial planning and policy support, and (2) the question of which community will guide the financial planning and the CLTL governance.

While the CLTL has been co-developed through the involvement of diverse actors, and the local authorities facilitated the emergence of a CLT community in Leuven, the leading role of the state in the development of such community seems to be associated with its discontinuity. The fact that local authorities shaped the emergence of this community based on predefined housing needs and with the aim of implementing housing policy visions prescribed an ephemeral nature to this community.

5. A State-Led CLT and the Commoning in and of Governance

The case of the Community Land Trust Leuven (CLTL) offers critical insights into the tensions and synergies between state intervention and commons-based governance. By analyzing CLTL’s development through the lens of strategic relational institutionalism, we reveal how state actors can both enable and constrain commoning processes, challenging binary narratives of the state as either a mere enabler or a co-opting force. The story of the CLTL illustrates how state-led collaborative governance mediates between municipal leadership and community engagement. Features of commoning have emerged throughout the process, including the formation of a community of actors who co-define a set of rules and principles to safeguard land as a shared asset and who invest time and expertise in materializing a housing commons and to defend the right to affordable housing on behalf of the ‘missing middle’, a community that is gradually excluded. Although it initially seems like an advocacy or participatory planning approach, in reality, the CLTL development constitutes an attempt initiated by the municipality to set up an alternative mode of housing provision while fostering community ownership. Investing in institutional capacity building, it lays the ground for democratizing land and housing governance introducing new policy discourses about the quality of places and socio-spatial justice.

Therefore, this paper reads the CLTL as a case that exemplifies a state-led commons, where municipal authorities initiate and financially support CLT projects while gradually decentralizing governance to a tripartite structure. To this end, local state representatives and collaborators facilitated institutional hacking, creatively combining legal tools (emphyteutic leases, VZW/SON structures) to bypass market-centric property regimes, resonating with Micciarelli’s [99] concept of ‘hacking the law’ to serve communal needs. Moreover, the city orchestrated a collaborative, participatory and reflexive governance arena [73]. Through ‘practice rooms’ and ‘CLT Cafés,’ as well as voting and decision-making processes in the CLTL assemblies, the state nurtured a community-in-the-making [41]. Community-building aimed to ensure participation and inclusivity while also seeking to establish a community capable of assuming governance over the housing commons, given that, at the time, only a community responsible for managing the common land was in place. However, the state’s nature as a top-down regulator does not fully dissolve. AGSL’s profitability mandates and delayed resident inclusion stem from a ‘bureaucratic capture’ [14], which results in risks of power re-centralization and commons co-optation by the market [35].

More specifically, the housing commons remains fragile both in terms of the houses’ long-term affordability and of commoning features in governance. The tripartite governance model, while innovative, has only partially realized its goal. Participation remains predominantly consultative rather than decisional, especially since residents’ voices lack power. Additionally, land and housing are approached by the state as resources and commodities that need to be safeguarded through the activation of a legal-institutional apparatus and the application of commons principles. This includes the use of financial instruments like social loans and capped resale prices seeking to sustain affordability, as well as legal forms that support community ownership to take land off the market. The CLTL’s affordability model transcends the neoliberal rent-to-income metric [88] and attempts to embed housing within a relational value system [32]. This is operationalized by decoupling land ownership from housing and hence disrupting Belgium’s asset-based welfare paradigm [87]. CLTL’s novelty further lies in strategic hybridity, which lies in leveraging state resources to decommodify land while negotiating capitalist constraints (e.g., AGSL’s 3% profit threshold). This advances debates on commons–state symbiosis [54] by showing how incremental decommodification can emerge even in high-cost urban markets. However, social values are insufficiently integrated in the CLT governance scheme, allowing the economic ones to prevail. The financial mechanisms mobilized embed commons within capitalist calculative regimes, rendering them vulnerable to market fluctuations [45].

Therefore, the risks of the CLTL being co-opted by the market are not merely theoretical but can already be discerned. Vulnerability is initially compounded by the absence of a resident-led base, as those currently shaping the framework are not the future residents and thus not directly connected to, or affected by, the resource. Such detachment weakens the social foundation of the housing commons and risks a fallback into state or market dependency [100]. Moreover, the CLTL remains heavily reliant on external funding, primarily government subsidies and private investment, creating structural tensions, since shifts in political priorities or funding conditions could compromise its autonomy and erode the democratic balance of the tripartite governance model. Finally, efforts to secure long-term sustainability through financial instruments such as bullet loans or other investment mechanisms expose the land to financialization, heighten affordability barriers for households, and introduce ideological contradictions by allowing external investors to extract value from a commons that was designed precisely to resist commodification [97]. The CLTL, therefore, risks being hollowed out and reduced to an experiment of bringing land into common management [45], rather than representing an alternative housing provision system embedded in relational politics with a transformative potential.

Despite the challenges, CLTL’s tripartite governance (residents, civil society, state) exemplifies commoning as institutional re-design [85]. Unlike traditional participatory governance, CLTL’s structure redistributes power by institutionalizing counter-hegemonic logics. For instance, residents and civil society hold veto power over speculative practices (in resale formulas, housing allocation criteria and land management). What is more, the rolling fund and ethical financing (e.g., Triodos Bank) reflect solidarity governance [101], where financial tools are repurposed for communal ends. Last, CLTL’s development process highlights a political strategy to transform the state’s role from a leading facilitator to an embedded commoner without forfeiting the financial and institutional resilience needed for long-term viability. Therefore, the making of the CLTL manifests a layered and negotiated commons formation, blending state frameworks, civil society engagement, and legal-institutional hybridization. The commons here is not a utopian rupture but a contested terrain shaped by continuous political work against both state rigidness and market gravitational forces. Such “differential commoning” in governance—using the words of Aernouts and Ryckewaert [14]—institutionalizes the redistribution of power navigating state–market tensions and challenging their dominance.

6. Conclusions: Towards a Praxis of State-Commoning

This paper examined the extent to which and the ways in which state-led housing commons democratize governance to address housing unaffordability and defend the right to housing. The analysis of the CLTL case highlights both the possibilities and inherent tensions of state-facilitated commons. These initiatives can orchestrate institutional innovation through legal and governance experimentation, by reimagining property regimes, and strategically reorient the state apparatus to serve collective and emancipatory aims. The CLTL further underscores the importance of relational governance, where roles, rights, and responsibilities among state, market, and civil society actors are continuously negotiated. Land enclosure and commodification trigger commons initiatives and counter-movements seeking to reclaim land and housing as social rights often engaging state actors not as external enforcers but as contested participants within hybrid governance formations. Yet such hybrid formations require constant vigilance and political reflexivity to resist co-optation and maintain commons as dynamic processes of socio-political transformation; especially when the state has a coordinating role.

The CLTL’s high reliance on the state has raised the question: Can a state-led commons avoid the state’s bureaucratic inertia and capitalist market co-optation, and by doing that, better satisfy the right to housing? The answer lies in embracing commoning as a processual and unfinished negotiation; a fluid mode of governance shaped by continuous contestation and redefinition. In the CLTL case, the city exercises its legal-institutional apparatus not only to remove land from speculative markets but also to foster collective land stewardship, drawing on trans-local knowledge. While the state positions land as a resource managed through financial and policy instruments, it simultaneously holds the capacity to grasp a momentum and open political space for community participation and democratic experimentation. The local state, thus, mobilizes its authority to enable democratic governance, inviting and supporting local communities to defend: (1) the right to housing by co-defining alternative housing and land stewardship models, and (2) the right to commoning as a precondition for securing the broader sphere of human rights.

Although the enabling state is never neutral, as it imports institutional mandates and fiscal rationalities that sometimes clash with commons-based aspirations, state-led commoning can be a transformative praxis. A state-led housing commons can be seen not only as a technical response to affordability crisis but as a transformative vehicle for reconfiguring socio-political relations and reclaiming the right to the city. States, therefore, can initiate commons without fully co-opting them, provided governance is polycentric and reflexive. This challenges anarchist critiques while cautioning against over-optimistic ‘partner state’ narratives. By combining legal and financial tools, state-led housing commons prototype a feasible alternative to market-driven housing pointing to socio-spatial justice that can be materialized through institutional hacking. Their contribution lies not in radical rupture but in incremental decommodification and differential commoning, showing how commons can evolve within capitalist states. In sum, CLTL’s novelty lies in its dialectical approach: using the state to dismantle market hegemony while resisting state-centric control. It exemplifies planning for socio-spatial justice not through grand designs but through emergent commoning, a lesson critical for cities grappling with competing urban dynamics.

To advance this critical inquiry, future research must pursue ethnographic engagement with CLTL residents, once the houses are constructed and inhabited, to capture their commoning practices and assess their potential to strengthen and proliferate housing commons. While from a methodological perspective, our study benefitted from the authors’ access to CLTL internal governance procedures, it inevitably affected the authors’ positionality, as the perspectives of institutional and professional actors were more present than those of prospective residents. Acknowledging this limitation, we stress the need for future studies that complement the institutional analysis with ground-level experiences on enacting spatial justice and democratic housing governance.

Beyond academic relevance, these findings offer critical lessons for policymakers. Municipalities experimenting with CLTs must safeguard governance autonomy by ensuring residents hold an equal voice within hybrid governance structures, balance their dual role as initiator and regulator. This requires combining enabling support with institutional distance to resist bureaucratic and market co-optation. Public financing instruments must be meticulously designed to enforce incremental decommodification of land and housing, ensuring perpetual affordability and collective stewardship. These instruments must explicitly preempt financialization by anchoring the model in social value rather than asset logic. These measures are not merely technical but constitute the essential praxis for navigating the inherent contradictions of state-led commoning. The above insights underscore the transformative potential of state-led housing commons, while cautioning against the fragilities and contradictions they must continuously navigate.