The Caño Martín Peña Community Land Trust in Puerto Rico was recently recognized with the prestigious UN World Habitat Award for transforming the impoverished community around the banks of a polluted river.

In a report from NBC News, UN Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha explained the significance of the project that nabbed this year's award.

"The project tackles a number of core elements for the right to housing such as ensuring security of tenure for those living in informal settlements, community participation and protection of land," Farha said. "It recognizes housing is a human right rather than a commodity. Women are community leaders, and the project ensures them title to properties."

According to the official website of the UN World Habitat Awards, the Martín Peña Channel was a highly polluted waterway in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Over 5,000 informal homes with a population of around 15,000 to 18,000 sprouted around the dirty riverbank, which posed a number of threats to the residents during rainy seasons and floods.

To address the problems facing the channel and its community, government agency ENLACE Corporation worked with the informal settlers to create Fideicomiso -- a Community Land Trust.

The consultation between the government and community resulted in the Development Plan and Land Use Plan, which worked not just to dredge the channel and improve the environmental conditions of the area, but also to transfer the land back to the community upon the establishment of the CLT.

The report called the application of the CLT in urban informal settlements "ground-breaking," as the original settlers around the channel was able to stay in the area without being priced out through the system created. Key factors that were identified were community participation and support.

"We believe in social justice for our communities and, more than anything, that decent housing is a right that all citizens have," Mario Núñez Mercado, spokesman for G-8, said as quoted by NBC News.

Lyvia N. Rodríguez Del Valle, executive director of the Fideicomiso land trust, also expressed how much the recognition means to the San Juan local community.

She said that the award is a good platform adding, "It's a chance to call attention to what is happening here and to finally continue to encourage the support that our communities need to achieve the environmental healing of the channel and to address the problem of public health that is affecting our people."