Unlocking Surplus Public Land for Affordable Housing: Lessons From Philanthropy

By B. Aaron Weaver, Program Analyst, International and Philanthropic Affairs Division, and Joseph R. Downes, Program Analyst, Policy Development Division

In July 2024, the White House announced new actions to repurpose and make available federally owned land for affordable housing development. As part of this announcement, the Biden-Harris administration called on federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and U.S. Postal Service to examine properties in their portfolio that potentially could be made available as housing to address the nation's need for new, affordable housing units.

The same day, HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) released a new issue of Policy & Practice focused on best practices for the repurposing of government land that highlighted promising examples of jurisdictions  repurposing surplus public land for affordable housing development. The article discussed the identification and inventory of surplus land in California, Atlanta, and Boston; effective legislation and policies to prioritize affordable housing development on repurposed land in the District of Columbia and Washington state; the provision of funding to develop repurposed public lands in New York; and the implementation of policies to use surplus land from transit projects in Seattle and Los Angeles.

Both PD&R's article and the White House Fact Sheet state that efforts to unlock the potential of public land require flexible funding streams, effective coordination across multiple actors and jurisdictions, and strong community engagement to tailor the approach to address local constraints and needs. Philanthropy is uniquely suited to facilitate these efforts. Foundations are exploring innovative financial approaches and providing targeted nonprofit supports, collating and disseminating research to facilitate and coordinate the implementation of effective policies and grounding these efforts in community voices.

Financial Innovation and Nonprofit Supports  

Among philanthropy's greatest strengths is its ability to provide flexible capital to plug gaps in the web of federal, state, and local funding streams — each of which comes with its own regulatory requirements. Philanthropic organizations also can cultivate extensive networks of experts and research to identify scalable interventions. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has paired these capabilities with its expertise in developing novel financial instruments to expand the supply of affordable housing. In April 2024, CZI released an Innovative Housing Finance Request for Applications (RFA) to expand affordable housing production and preservation in California. Among the approaches the RFA targets is "[f]unding housing project types with unique financing barriers (e.g., lot splits, ADUs [accessory dwelling units], development on surplus lands, tenancy in common, cooperatives, etc.) with a focus on taking advantage of recent land use reforms." CZI expects to announce its selected organizations in fall 2024.

Philanthropic partners also can leverage their existing relationships and networks to address capacity constraints and emergent challenges to the development process. In Virginia, Chesterfield County partnered with the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust (MWCLT) to redevelop the former Dupuy Elementary School into 10 single-family homes with affordability targeted at households earning up to 80 percent of the area median income. With support from the Community Foundation of Greater Richmond, The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation, River City Givers, and the Richmond Memorial Health Foundation, MWCLT was able to expand beyond its traditional model when it discovered that the school's physical condition would not allow for adaptive reuse.

Facilitating Policy Coordination and Implementation

In California, the San Francisco Foundation and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation have leveraged their convening power through the Great Communities Collaborative (GCC) and the Partnership for the Bay's Future (PBF) in coordinated efforts to support the adoption of effective policies around surplus public land. The GCC's Public Land Working Group compiled a Public Land Resource Library and "engages non-profit advocates, organizing groups, and technical providers who are working on public land campaigns, research, and policy implementation… [to increase] awareness of public lands as a community preservation and affordable housing tool in the regional political consciousness." In a similar effort geared toward local governments, the Florida Housing Coalition published Florida's Surplus Land Statutes for Affordable Housing: A Guidebook for Implementation Using Best Practices in 2019 with support from the Bank of America and BBVA Compass foundations.

Established in 2019, PBF focuses its efforts on two workstreams: supporting the development and adoption of policies that address displacement and providing loans to expand the supply of affordable housing. Over the past 5 years, PBF reports that it has supplied financing for more than 4,400 homes and facilitated the implementation of 13 policies aimed at expanding affordable housing. The city council of Richmond, California's adoption of the Equitable Public Land Disposition Policy on March 19, 2024, marked a significant accomplishment for PBF's policy fund:

The [effort] in Richmond has been significantly propelled by partnerships and community outreach facilitated through the Partnership for the Bay's Future's (PBF) Policy Fund. The collaborative effort convened community leaders, government officials, and local organizations like RichmondLAND, exemplifying a model of inclusive policy-making process. The Policy Fund team's comprehensive outreach to Richmond residents was pivotal towards gathering valuable insights and ensuring their active involvement in shaping the policy. By ensuring a diverse range of perspectives in crafting the policy, the Policy Fund team laid a foundation for the future of creating community-centered policies in Richmond as well as a blueprint for other cities grappling with similar challenges, demonstrating the scalable impact of collaborative governance.

The regional approach underpinning these initiatives not only expands the resources available to enact them but also promotes the scaling of identified solutions while recognizing that affordable housing issues are inherently cross-jurisdictional.

Embedding Community Engagement in the Process

Empowering communities to shape the response to local housing needs stands at the nexus of HUD and philanthropic efforts to address the shortage of affordable housing. For example, HUD's HOME Investment Partnerships and Community Development Block Grant programs mandate that entitlement jurisdictions submit Consolidated Plans and Annual Action Plans detailing how their HUD-funded activities incorporate citizen input and address local needs. In Arkansas, the Walton Family Foundation, working in partnership with the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, built on these efforts through "an 11-month research and engagement effort" that resulted in the 2019 publication of Our Housing Future: A Call to Action for Northwest Arkansas. Reflecting input from communities across the region, the report lists the "use of publicly owned land for housing production" among its "five critical actions." The report also identifies barriers to the use of public land and proposes solutions such as developing a regional land disposition policy and exploring the use of ground leasing. On a more granular level, the feasibility of individual projects often hinges on community buy-in. As previously mentioned, Virginia-based MWCLT was expanding beyond its standard business model when it sought to redevelop Dupuy Elementary School. As a former school, the site held particular importance in the collective memory of the local community, and the project required extensive community engagement before the county demolished the structure and transferred the property to MWCLT.

Each of these philanthropic examples illustrates a central theme of partnership. The very nature of repurposing public land for affordable housing development requires public-private partnerships; the public sector rarely has the funding needed to finance such projects in their entirety, nor would such a situation be desirable when a partnership would be a more efficient means to the same end. Moreover, the multidimensional nature of the process so clearly illuminated in these examples involves skillsets beyond the scope of any individual actor. In this respect, philanthropy will find a ready partner in HUD, which continually is exploring tools and techniques that will expand access to affordable housing.