Public Land for Public Good

Millions of Americans, whether living in urban or rural places, face an urgent need for safe and affordable shelter. And hundreds of cities, large and small, are looking for ways to build resilience to extreme weather events that threaten their residents—and, in some cases, to adapt for an influx of new residents fleeing the impacts of a changing climate. Solutions to all these challenges share an essential ingredient: land.

Governments around the world already possess more than enough land to meet these needs; however, large amounts of publicly owned land sit vacant or underutilized, their purpose mismatched to current needs. This is especially true at more local levels of government, like cities, counties, states, school districts, and public authorities. This land could, and should, be repurposed for public benefit, especially affordable housing and nature-based solutions—but that’s easier said than done. This fall, the Lincoln Institute plans to launch a campaign focused on helping communities put the right publicly owned parcels to work to deliver solutions with enduring benefits.

As a country, we are short about 4.7 million homes. According to an analysis by the Center for Geospatial Solutions at the Lincoln Institute, the United States has more than 276,000 buildable acres of government-owned land in transit-accessible urban areas—enough to support between roughly two and seven million new homes, depending on density. This estimate deliberately excludes parks, wetlands, and rights-of-way; it concentrates on sites where development would not sacrifice open space.

The point is not that every acre should be built on. It is that publicly owned land, used strategically, can bend the cost curve for affordable housing and create room for the green infrastructure that protects neighborhoods from heat and floods.

Momentum is already visible across every level of government. The federal administration has asked agencies to identify properties that might be repurposed for housing. Meanwhile, states and cities are taking action: California has strengthened its Surplus Land Act, compelling local agencies to inventory available parcels, offer them first to affordable housing developers, and follow transparent, enforceable procedures; a law in the District of Columbia ties affordability to public land deals by requiring a substantial share of below-market units, especially near transit. Massachusetts has advanced a portfolio of surplus state parcels with the aim of producing thousands of homes; San Francisco’s Public Lands for Housing program is putting large, underperforming sites such as the 17-acre Balboa Reservoir to work for mixed-income housing; and Sound Transit in Washington state has framed a policy to dedicate surplus properties for income-restricted housing near stations. These are not one-offs; they are the building blocks of a playbook.

Repurposing publicly owned land isn’t just a housing solution—it’s also a way to build resilience. Many of the most promising parcels are ideal for nature-based solutions that manage stormwater, cool neighborhoods, and add public space. Philadelphia’s Green City, Clean Waters program uses streets, parks, schoolyards, and other public rights-of-way to capture stormwater, cutting combined sewer overflows while greening neighborhoods. Los Angeles County’s Measure W finances multi-benefit projects such as Magic Johnson Park, where water capture, habitat, recreation, and shade come together on public land. In New Orleans, the Gentilly Resilience District aggregates public and institutional parcels to store water and lower neighborhood temperatures. These projects make it clear that repurposing municipal land can make communities better places to live—but communities will need to focus on four concrete and actionable pillars for this effort to take off:

1. Find the land. Governments should create public-facing inventories of potentially developable publicly owned parcels. The Center for Geospatial Solutions can produce high-quality, jurisdiction-specific maps using its Who Owns America® methodology, complete with parcel attributes like zoning, potential contamination, access to infrastructure, proximity to jobs and transit, and known constraints and priorities. Because public officials often lack the capacity and resources to conduct this analysis, we envision working with partners to support clear decision-making. The maps can classify sites into categories: housing-first (near transit or corridors where family-sized affordable units make the most sense), resilience-first (flood pathways, riparian corridors, or heat islands that could better support water storage, cooling, and habitat), and dual-benefit (sites that can host both housing and green infrastructure).
2. Fix the rules. Good inventories only matter if the rules allow publicly owned land to be used for public benefit predictably and at scale. “Affordability-first” policies typically include five elements: a requirement to inventory surplus land and provide public notice; a first-offer or first-look process for qualified affordable housing entities; minimum affordability set-asides that are stronger near high-quality transit; explicit authority to use below-market ground leases or sales to meet affordability targets; and timelines with consequences so that processes don’t stall. For public authorities—like transit, water, and education agencies—portfolio-level targets create accountability and protect mission alignment. As our campaign evolves, we hope to provide model policy language, facilitate peer-to-peer exchanges, and offer technical support to align public-owner goals with procurement, zoning, and financing.
3. Fund it. Even with land value on the table, deeply affordable housing and modern green infrastructure require funding, especially early on. Communities should embrace a braided-capital approach that treats land value as equity in the capital stack and weaves multiple funding streams together. The Lincoln Institute’s Accelerating Community Investment initiative—which convenes public agencies, mission-driven lenders, philanthropy, and private capital to structure investable projects—is a good example of a program that helps partners pair land equity with state housing bonds, tax-credit equity, concessional or program-related investments, federal tools, and local gap funding. Once jurisdictions are able to quantify the value unlocked by land, they can negotiate confidently and transparently.

4. Fulfill the benefits. Communities rightly expect clarity, fairness, and visible public value from public land deals, which requires designing processes that build trust, from standardized RFPs to fixed land prices. Through the Lincoln Vibrant Communities program at Claremont Lincoln University, we can provide direct training, technical assistance, and coaching for cross-sector teams—public officials, community leaders, housing practitioners, and infrastructure agencies—who want to work together to deploy public land for public benefit. This team-based capacity building is essential; the success of all of this work through the point of delivery depends on coordinated execution.

To head off some predictable concerns, our inventories are designed precisely to avoid any risk of eroding open space: They exclude parks and sensitive habitats and steer attention to already paved, underused, and transit-served sites. Moreover, many resilience projects add accessible open space—a water-smart park, a shaded greenway—while protecting downstream neighborhoods from flooding. We should also note that, counter to what some critics think, below-market land deals are not “giveaways.” In fact, the public receives lasting value—permanently affordable homes, climate protection, and amenities secured by ground leases, deed restrictions, and enforceable agreements. Finally, federal land alone cannot solve the problem. Federal properties can help at the margins, but most of the opportunity lies with local governments and public authorities that control land near jobs and transit. That is why state and local programs matter most, and why our efforts will focus on helping those owners act.

This campaign will connect the dots between housing production and climate resilience in more places. And it will link policy with delivery, so that commitments turn into actual homes and green infrastructure on the ground, because the housing shortage and the climate emergency will not wait.

Publicly owned land is a public trust. Used well, it can help us house people where opportunity and need are greatest, keep neighborhoods safe from heat and floods, and renew confidence that public institutions can solve big problems. This upcoming campaign will be our invitation to all parties to get moving—together, and at the pace and scale the moment requires.

George W. McCarthy is president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image: A rendering of the mixed-income Balboa Reservoir community under development on public land in San Francisco. Credit: Van Meter Williams Pollack.