Andrew Mikula
In August, the Healey administration announced the first RFP under a state program, dubbed “State Land For Homes,” that designates surplus state-owned properties for housing development. The RFP calls for the creation of at least 20 new homes on what is currently a 5-acre parking lot in Bedford.
Facilitating housing development on public land has many potential benefits. Chief among them is the option to save on acquisition expenses, enabling lower-cost homes than would otherwise be possible. And if the land is sold at full market value, the sale proceeds often benefit specific public institutions – in the case of the Bedford property, Middlesex Community College.
But designating state land for homes is no silver bullet. A recent press release describes the State Land For Homes program as potentially creating 3,500 homes across the commonwealth, just 1.6 percent of the administration’s goal to build 222,000 homes in the next 10 years.
Like many public policy solutions, a more scalable and impactful version of this program would also be more politically difficult: building housing on land owned by local governments.
Municipal Land Has Big Potential
According to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, local governments own nearly 90 percent of buildable public land in transit-accessible communities in Massachusetts – a total of 35.8 square miles.
Further, this locally owned public land is disproportionately concentrated in areas within Massachusetts that have the most acute housing shortages. Of the 35.8 square miles, 22.2 are in Greater Boston, and another 3.6 are in the Cape & Islands region.
Some of these parcels are difficult to develop in practice: wooded land with little street frontage, cemeteries and even covered landfills are included in the Lincoln Institute database. But many others consist of prime real estate in the center of town, including surface-level parking lots, and underutilized properties elsewhere, such as vacant lots acquired in tax foreclosures.
Building housing on just 10 percent of the locally owned land identified by the Lincoln Institute at 15 units per acre, the same density as is required under the MBTA Communities law, would yield 34,320 units. That’s nearly 10 times as many as are expected to be built under the State Land For Homes program. And keep in mind: The 34,320-unit figure only includes communities the Lincoln Institute deems “transit accessible.”
Regulatory Barriers Remain
The idea of building on publicly owned land is not new. Last year, a team of Boston University researchers meticulously documented the potential to do so as part of The Boston Foundation’s annual Housing Report Card.
The report card makes clear the regulatory and political barriers to building housing on locally owned public land in particular, from procurement requirements to community opposition to supermajority vote thresholds among elected bodies. It also shows that 42 percent of municipally owned public land is both vacant and not used for conservation.
The BU researchers identified many good reform ideas, such as exempting some housing developments from discretionary reviews and providing technical assistance for communities looking to build on public land.
But before these ideas can be impactful, local officials need to be convinced that locally owned government land is “surplus” or otherwise worth redeveloping into housing, and policy reforms can help with that too. The Lincoln Institute database allows users to see how buildable parcels of public land are currently utilized – or underutilized.
How to Incentivize Towns to Act
Since many parcels in the database are vacant or forested, the state could incentivize localities to pursue “cluster developments” on municipal land that simultaneously build housing and permanently preserve open space.
This would potentially function similarly to Chapter 40R’s “Smart Growth Zoning Overlay Districts,” except with requirements for creating designated conservation land and less emphasis on mixed-use and transit-oriented development. Such an approach would also offer more flexibility regarding the density and typology of the housing than Chapter 40Y’s “Starter Home Zoning Districts.”
As mentioned above, the Lincoln Institute database also contains many examples of surface-level public parking lots in commercial village centers. The state could provide technical assistance for parking utilization studies that not only identify surplus land, but also discern opportunities to improve wayfinding, increase parking lot turnover, and ultimately benefit surrounding businesses.
Lastly, it’s common for localities to buy and redevelop properties for uses besides housing. For example, Wayland residents have recently debated what to do with nearly seven acres of land connected to the town’s middle school, the site of a since-demolished DPW facility. The lead proposal is to develop a “sports center” or other recreational use.
In communities like Wayland that have yet to reach safe harbor under Chapter 40B, disbursing state funding for such a redevelopment project should require an explicit determination by the state that the property is unsuitable for housing.
The upshot is that, long before a particular proposal is on the table, a lot of work is required to add housing on locally owned public land.
The State Land For Homes program can help show localities what’s possible, but stronger carrots and sticks are needed to encourage cities and towns to consider the potential for housing development on their properties.
Andrew Mikula is the senior housing fellow at the Pioneer Institute, a public policy think tank in Boston.
