The City of Seattle wants to build more affordable housing on public land. So on Monday, the city council unanimously passed legislation that prioritizes and speeds up the approval process for constructing affordable housing on city-owned land that’s being underutilized, or no longer in use at all. It stems from one of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda’s (HALA) 65 recommendations for dealing with Seattle’s housing crisis.

It’s a popular and logical talking point among some housing advocates. If the city has land it no longer needs and a desperate need for more affordable housing, it makes sense for the city to sell that land to a nonprofit affordable housing developer for below market rate.

It raises the question: Just how much impact could publicly owned land have on the affordable housing shortage? It turns out, less than you might think.

For one, there are firm restrictions on certain types of surplus land that force the city to seek fair market value on the land. There’s also lots of public land out there that doesn’t meet the Office of Housing’s affordable housing criteria for good affordable housing investment. Despite that, the council, the Office of Housing, and advocates say it’s a strategy worth pursuing as one of many tools necessary to make a dent in the city’s housing needs.

“Surplus land is important because it’s one of the best ways for us to reduce the cost and speed up the construction of affordable housing,” said Councilmember Rob Johnson. “The challenge is identifying the right parcels that have the right mix of characteristics to make sense [for affordable housing].”

In 2015, the city had 210 surplus properties. Of those, only 33 were considered potentially suitable for affordable housing development.

When public land is no longer needed, it goes through a multi-stage “disposition” process. The Office of Financial and Administrative Services evaluates the property and issues a report recommending whether the city should repurpose it for a different department or sell it. Office of Housing also evaluates the land to determine if it would work well as a site for a nonprofit affordable housing developer to bid. The city council then votes to approve the reuse or land sale. Finally, the city releases a request for proposal (RFP) from would-be buyers, whether nonprofit or for-profit developers.

The Office of Housing looks at a wide range of positive and negative characteristics to make that determination. Location matters, of course. Office of Housing policy and equitable development manager Emily Alvarado said they try to spread affordable housing throughout the city. They also consider access to transit, schools, jobs, medical facilities, and other amenities. On the negative side, they look at environmental contamination, steep slopes, whether the plot is too small for multi-family housing, and other factors that might drive up the cost of construction in ways that might be feasible for a for-profit developer, but don’t make sense for nonprofits.

In 2015, the city had 210 surplus properties. Of those, only 33 were considered potentially suitable for affordable housing development.

Alvarado pointed to Capitol Hill Housing’s apartments at 12th Avenue and Jefferson Street as a mostly ideal recent example. The city had a taken possession of an empty brownfield lot at that site in the late 1990s. After a decade of sitting unused, they gave it to Capitol Hill Housing to clean up and build on.

In another recent example, the city sold a plot of surplus land at 6th Ave and Yesler Way for $1.4 million to a private developer who agreed to keep the 150 units affordable to individuals making $46,100 or less. That $1.4 million went to the city’s housing fund to be used for building more affordable housing elsewhere.

Because the SDOT used gas tax funds to pay for some of the Mercer Corridor project, the city is required by the state constitution to seek fair-market value for land. And given the eye-popping value of land in South Lake Union, the buyer will surely be a for-profit developer.

Two massive plots of surplus land down in South Lake Union help illustrate the difficulty of using public land for affordable housing. The city is getting ready to sell a block and a half of land at Mercer Street and Dexter Avenue that served as construction staging for the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT)’s now-complete Mercer Corridor project. At first blush it makes sense for the city to offer at least part of the land to a nonprofit developer at below market rate. It’s a centrally-located, amenity-rich, transit-accessible neighborhood in which no affordable housing developer could likely afford to buy land anymore.

But the city says its hands are tied. Because SDOT used gas tax funds to pay for some of the project, the city is required by the state constitution to seek fair-market value for land. And given the eye-popping value of land in South Lake Union, the buyer will surely be a for-profit developer. Land owned by public utilities has similar requirements to seek fair-market value in order to repay the rate-paying customers.

Johnson said the Mercer buyer will still ultimately contribute to affordable housing. The RFPs require that a residential developer build 150 units of affordable housing affordable to somebody earning 60 percent area median income or below. That’s in addition to the affordable housing units that will come from the Mandatory Housing Affordability policy, which requires developers build affordable housing on site or pay into the city housing fund.

“It’s very complicated and in my view here in Seattle they do a pretty good job of getting [land] into affordable housing when they can,” said Capitol Hill Housing CEO Chris Persons. “My guess is even if you built on all the available surplus land and maximized the units it would just be a scratch on the surface of the problem. There are [nearly] 12,000 homeless people in Seattle and King County.”

Though city-owned surplus land can only do so much to meet the housing need, there’s lots of other public land owned by other entities scattered throughout Seattle including county- and federally-owned land and, importantly, Sound Transit properties.

“Even if you built on all the available surplus land and maximized the units it would just be a scratch on the surface of the problem. There are [nearly] 12,000 homeless people in Seattle and King County.”

“These big dispositions of Sound Transit property is something to look forward to. That is going to be a game changer in terms of the role surplus land can play in affordable housing development,” said Office of Housing deputy director Miriam Roskin.

Sound Transit has a directive from the state legislature to make sure 80 percent of their surplus property portfolio is offered to affordable housing developers who make at least 80 percent of units affordable to people make 80 percent of area median income. Sound Transit and the Office of Housing are working together to prepare an RFP for nonprofit affordable housing developers at a site next to the future Roosevelt light rail station north of the University District. A similar process is underway to build affordable housing on First Hill at the corner of Madison St and Boylston Ave. Mercy Housing opened 108 units of affordable housing at Othello Station this summer.

In addition to Sound Transit, some advocates say “underutilized” public land is a key opportunity for building affordable housing.

“Surplus has an official designation,” said Enterprise Community Partners senior program director James Madden. “Underutilized land could maybe be a parking lot or a warehouse or storage that no longer makes sense.”

The 12th Avenue Arts project in Capitol Hill built affordable housing and retail on a former Police Department parking lot. Enterprise and Futurewise are currently working to map all of the public land in the city and exactly how much of it surplus or underutilized. They hope to have a usable tool by summer 2018.

Madden said public land, whether surplus or underutilized, is only going to play a more important role in affordable housing construction in coming years. “It’s harder and harder for our nonprofit partners to compete on the open market. Land makes up about 10 to 20 percent of the total development cost. In an environment of really constrained resources, if you can take 10 to 20 percent off the top, that’s a huge advantage.”

Alvarado also thinks public land will play a larger role in Seattle’s future affordable housing construction. She said the new council legislation and policies are about “trying to make sure all our internal ducks are in a row so we can capitalize when opportunities arise. It looks like in the future public land will be a key piece of the puzzle.”