About OCLT

The Ottawa Community Land Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving affordable housing in Ottawa. This means ensuring that affordable housing remains affordable forever and avoids being subject to private market interests.

Our History

In 2017, Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC) pitched an idea to the other four community housing groups that also lease land at LeBreton Flats from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC): Why don’t we create a community land trust to secure the land we lease, then lease it back to ourselves at longer and lower terms?

Before long, Alex Laidlaw Co-op, Tompkins Co-op, Dalhousie Co-op, and Ottawa Community Housing (OCH) joined CCOC in forming OCLT. The idea grew. Many people saw benefits to a community land trust that could do the same thing with properties across the national capital region.

Additional folks from Ottawa’s affordable housing sector joined the effort, funding initial work with small grants.

Our Mission

OCLT properties will provide homes with rent levels less than average market rent. OCLT will encourage non-profit and co-operative headlease holders to secure rent subsidies so that deeper levels of affordability are achieved. We envision a community where affordable housing is available to anyone who needs it.