What is a Community Benefits Agreement?

A Community Benefits Agreement, or a CBA, is a legally enforceable contract, signed by community groups and by a developer, setting forth a range of community benefits that the developer agrees to provide as part of a development project.

A CBA is the result of a negotiation process between the developer and organized representatives of affected communities, in which the developer agrees to shape the development in a certain way or to provide specified community benefits.

In exchange, the community groups promise to support the proposed project before government bodies that provide the necessary permits and subsidies. The CBA is both a process to work towards these mutually beneficial objectives, and a mechanism to enforce both sides' promises.

From Community Benefits Agreements: Making Development Projects Accountable,
by Julian Gross, 2005

CBAs: Redistribution of power to community coalitions

In Empowering Communities, a paper published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research in March 2008, CPI Research and Policy Director Murtaza Baxamusa explains the new process that empowers grassroots coalitions to negotiate agreements with developers.  His two models are large projects at the Los Angeles airport and San Diego's downtown ballpark, where developers agreed to provide living wage jobs, affordable housing, green building standards and other benefits for the community. The paper is based on Baxamusa's PhD dissertation.