The Story of Rubina: Lessons on Self-governance in Peruvian informal settlements and Considerations for Community Land Trusts

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the Peruvian government has introduced two policies to address informal settlements' property and housing challenges: the formalization titling policy and the certificate of possession policy. Both have caused adverse side effects such as land speculation and land trafficking, respectively. This thesis studies the failure of these past policies and proposes that a new property regime - Community Land Trusts (CLTs) - might be the optimal way to address these property and housing challenges. First, I study why previous property policies failed to intervene in urban informality. Second, I conduct interviews to gather evidence on the self-governance of an informal settlement in Lima and compare it with the core components of different global CLT theories and models. Finally, I intersect both sections to learn about the potential and challenges of establishing a CLT such informal settlement. The implications of this thesis are a set of recommendations and additional research that the Peruvian government should consider when regulating CLTs in Peru.