Western Queens Community Land Trust

The Western Queens Community Land Trust (WQCLT) is democratically managed, non-profit organization working towards the collective ownership of land in Queens. It was founded in 2019 by a coalition of anti-gentrification activists, neighborhood residents, and academics who joined forces in the aftermath of Amazon's failed attempt to bring their second headquarters to the Queens waterfront. Instead of large-scale top-down redevelopment projects that subsidize rich corporations, the WQCLT proposes a bottom-up approach to planning in which the benefits of development are shared.

I joined the WQCLT in November of 2019 as a volunteer community organizer and built a team to host several community visioning sessions. For each session, we spent the weeks prior handing out flyers on the street and holding teach-ins about the community land trust model. We bolstered these efforts with social media campaigns, meetings with elected officials, and policy briefings. The work paid off; all of our visioning sessions were attended by hundreds of people. The photos below are from our September 18th, 2021 Community Festival, and our May 14th, 2022 Public Launch, as well as our DOE Building Feasibility Study.

GO TO WQCLT'S WEBSITE

WQCLT's proposal for a collectively-owned, community-run commercial building in Long Island City, Queens

Images above from our Community Festival on September 18th, 2021

Public Launch on May 14th

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