Including Community Landownership as part of New Development: Good Practice Collaboration Between Community Landowners and Developers

Community landowners are increasingly being asked to collaborate on new development projects, taking ownership of land or buildings as part of a wider development with private and public developers. This could be a community organisation taking ownership of a building they lease as part of a wider strategic development, as in one of our case studies North Edinburgh Arts. It could also be a community council supporting a new community landownership project arising out of ongoing engagement with a developer; there are many ways these projects are taking shape. The common thread is good practice engagement between developers and community groups leading to the local community deciding to set up as a properly constituted community body to take ownership of land or buildings. This is community empowerment in action.

There are some good examples of collaboration with community landownership included, and we highlight some of them in this Report. However, many developments are still to adopt this forward thinking approach. Community Land Scotland has seen hugely varying practice in collaborations between communities and developers, and a growing need for guidance. To help provide some good advice and suggestions as to how collaborations could improve, we commissioned research into good practice case studies. We identified an existing case study of Ellon Castle Gardens in Aberdeenshire in our literature review and researched two new case studies of major developments currently underway. These case studies are North Edinburgh Arts, who are collaborating with the City of Edinburgh Council on a major regeneration scheme; and Tornagrain New Town near Inverness.

Read the full report below.