Lincoln Institute Announces Campaign to Redevelop Public Land for Public Good 

CAMBRIDGE, MA– The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has announced Public Land for All Communities and the Environment (PLACE), a national campaign to empower local government and civic partners to overcome common procedural and legal barriers to the effective transfer and transformation of public land, including for affordable housing, nature-based solutions, conservation, and other public benefits.

“Public land has a crucial role to play in addressing the housing affordability crisis and adapting to environmental challenges that impact millions of Americans—but local governments need support to enable the transformation,” said George W. McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “The PLACE campaign builds on the Lincoln Institute’s unparalleled history of finding answers in land, including how policymakers and their partners can better and more strategically leverage publicly owned land.”

The PLACE campaign builds off the Lincoln Institute’s past work to inform federal policy on how best to repurpose suitable public land for the development of affordable housing. As part of that work, the Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS)—a nonprofit geospatial services provider operating out of the Lincoln Institute—conducted a national, parcel-level analysis that found more than 276,000 acres of buildable, government-owned land in transit-accessible urban areas with existing infrastructure. These findings suggest federal agencies, states, and localities could add more than 6.9 million homes to the nation’s current housing stock in places closer to jobs and schools than many traditional development sites tend to offer.

The findings, developed using CGS’s Who Owns America ® methodology, also show that while federal land comprises approximately 5,200 acres of that total, the majority of opportunity to translate public land into lasting public benefit lies with state and local governments, which collectively hold more than 98 percent of the land identified.

Land unsuitable for housing still has potential for public good as well—primarily by affording nature-based solutions to other social challenges. The Lincoln Institute is committed to putting the tools and expertise in the hands of local communities so that they can better use their own land to solve urgent challenges, such as expanding green infrastructure for stormwater management, seeding urban forests that address the impacts of climate change, and more.

As part of the campaign, the Lincoln Institute will also equip individual leaders and city teams with necessary skills and expertise through Lincoln Vibrant Communities, a 24-week program at Claremont Lincoln University, the university of the Lincoln Institute. This collaborative certificate program offers graduate-level education, expert coaching, and peer networking to support public and private-sector leaders in advancing sustainable community development.

More information about the Lincoln Institute and the PLACE campaign can be found here.

Lead image: The Artspace Mt. Baker Lofts near Mount Baker Station in Seattle. Credit: Sound Transit.