Creative Land Trusts: A Practical Guide
HOW TO HARDWIRE AFFORDABLE CREATIVE WORKSPACE IN YOUR CITY
Many cities across the world are facing a creative space crisis. Rapid urbanisation, high rents and property market forces are threatening spaces where artists, designers and cultural communities can create, collaborate, and experiment. But cities are turning to an innovative solution.
Through strategic partnerships with funders, developers and creatives, cities can secure affordable creative spaces for the long term, by setting up Creative Land Trusts.
In this World Cities Culture Forum publication, “A practical guide to Creative Land Trusts – How to hardwire affordable creative workspace and artists’ studios in your city”, city policymakers and cultural leaders can discover how over a dozen cities – including world cities such as Austin, San Francisco, London and Helsinki – have created Creative Land Trusts or similar models to put aside land and assets for culture and to make them available affordably to the creative sector for the long term.
Download the Creative Land Trust Practical Guide.
What is a Creative Land Trust?
Creative Land Trusts work by creating a legal structure that safeguards a property for creative use. The property is either purchased, leased for the long-term or gifted to the trust. They are usually set up by a partnership between a city, developer and funder.
Which cities have Creative Land Trusts?
Kaapeli in Helsinki and the Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST) in San Francisco were the early pioneers of this approach. Then in 2019, Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries in London, and Founder and Chair, World Cities Culture Forum, was inspired by CAST in San Francisco to set up a Creative Land Trust in London.
Through World Cities Culture Forum’s Leadership Exchange programme, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, more cultural leaders have been inspired to learn about and adapt this innovative model in cities such as Austin, Warsaw, Melbourne and Vancouver. Sydney is the latest to plan a Creative Land Trust, where creative workspace declined by over 1,861,000 sq ft between 2012 and 2022.
In 2025, World Cities Culture Forum joined forces with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation to convene cultural leaders from 20 cities for the first ever Creative Land Trust Summit in San Francisco.
