Community Land Trusts in Informal Settlements: Adapting Features of Puerto Rico’s Caño Martín Peña CLT to Address Land Insecurity in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This chapter is the result of a collaborative research project between a nongovernmental organization based in Rio de Janeiro, Catalytic Communities, and Latin America’s first community land trust—one of the world’s only CLTs in an informal settlement—the Fideicomiso de la Tierra del Caño Martín Peña in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The aim of the research project was to study the potential of CLT instruments and strategies developed by the communities along the Martín Peña channel as a way to tackle insecure tenure in Rio’s favela communities. Based on this research, we present recommendations on essential lessons when considering the creation of a community land trust in informal settlements, such as those that exist in Puerto Rico, Brazil, and most countries in the Global South.

For the purpose of this essay, we have defined “informal settlements” as those where settlers have self-built homes in communal areas, on land to which they lack legal ownership, and on which they continue to live. Many of these settlements have existed for several generations. Over time, therefore, they may become consolidated, whereby the building stock, access to some services, community ties, and a way of life have become firmly established, even as the residents’ tenure has remained precarious; that is, their legal right to occupy the land beneath their homes has remained “informal.” Regularization becomes a primary objective in these cases, the process to legally secure the occupancy and use of the lands underlying an informal settlement.

In this chapter, we identify a set of conditions that we have concluded must be in place in an informal settlement before considering the creation of a CLT as a primary land tenure and regularization strategy. We also present an analysis of legal strategies that we deem necessary to implement CLTs, specifically in the favelas (the informal settlements) of Rio de Janeiro. Our hope is that this chapter can serve other communities, organizers, and professionals who are interested in understanding the process of establishing a community land trust in an informal settlement.