This week I joined TransLoc's National Director of Policy, Josh Cohen on his podcast, The Movement, to discuss strategies to turn underutilized public assets like parking lots, excess right of way and former government buildings into housing and redevelopment opportunities that benefit surrounding communities. This concept of Public Lands for Public Benefit is something that MZ Strategies has been pleased to work on with several clients to advance local policies and synthesis emerging practices.

There are many reasons that public agencies have acquired land. Building new highways or transit projects allows eminent domain to be used. Some properties are acquired through foreclosure. In many instances, property and land was also acquired through urban renewal or other practices that stripped assets from communities of color.

Legislation at the state, county and municipal levels have been enacted in numerous places across the country to create the inventory of public assets, and to publish this information with an eye towards its development potential. In Washington state agencies are required to prioritize use of underutilized lands for affordable housing.

Revenues raised from the sale of underutilized public lands can help local jurisdictions fund other important community services. It is therefore important to fully understand the assets that are available, their redevelopment potential, and to consider a comprehensive set of costs and benefits entailed in how and whether they are sold, leased, maintained and redeveloped for what purpose.

Community advocates in Oakland, CA fighting for community justice in utilizing public lands. (Photo: Bay Area 4 All)

Engaging community voices as partners in the process to determine the best use of surplus lands is critical. So too, is modifying RFP and disposition processes to allow affordable housing developers to fairly compete. This can mean the difference between rents that are unaffordable to the existing communities and those that are not.

Cities are adopting resolutions and policies to prioritize the use of public lands for community benefit, realizing that these are important resources that were acquired with public funds. Long-term leases that provide these lands at a deep price discount for community-serving needs such as neighborhood health care or day care hubs, business incubators or affordable housing are among the emerging practices taking shape in places like Seattle, San Antonio and Oakland, to name just a few.

Here are some resources that may be useful for all of us working to ensure that public assets advance public priorities:

MZ Strategies Blog on Public Assets for Public Benefit (September 2019)

A snapshot of best practices on Public Benefit from Publicly-Owned Parcels (Enterprise Community Partners, 2017)
Toolkit and model ordinances to Prioritize public lands for affordable housing and other public benefits (Minnesota Family Housing Fund, December 2018)
Leveraging property owned by Faith-Based organizations to create affordable housing (Enterprise Community Partners, February 2020)

Community members in Chicago’s Logan Square speak out for prioritize affordable housing on public lands to tamper gentrification pressures (Photo: Elevated Chicago)

During our podcast chat, Josh Cohen asked if I thought we had turned a corner in planning to make equity a standard practice. I shared the opinion that no we have not. Racism is deeply baked into our urban policies from transportation to housing to our institutions and planning processes. Yet, progress is being made in some places.

I noted that perhaps we are at the intersection of two roads and we can see around the country to an anti-racist future. Navigating this new path requires more than just attending conferences such as Policy Link’s Equity Summit or Rail~Volution (both of which I think are excellent) or creating an Equity Officer within city government (which I also support). Both are examples though of sidelining racial equity work.

True progress comes when we all see dismantling racism as part of our standard body of practice. This includes making the time to ensure we have shared understanding of what equity looks like and what is contributing to continued racial and economic inequality. It requires coalitions of racially diverse partners and cross-sector allies who are committed to dismantling racial policies. It involves thinking about who benefits from policies and who is burdened? Who is at the decision-making table? And what are we each doing to ensure inclusive, transparent processes in all areas of planning? This is hard and on-going work, but worth the effort.

We must also commit to not rolling back progress that has been made. Over the next month there are important opportunities to provide public comment on three critical federal policies. Proposed changes by the Trump administration to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule (AFFH), and the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) will set back racial equity by decades.

TAKE ACTION NOW

COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT. The CRA is the landmark civil rights law passed in 1977 to end discrimination that was once common in America’s banking and housing markets. Since its passage more than a trillion dollars has gone into low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Yet, lending discriminatory practices persist and these communities still bear the scars from decades of racial redlining that prevented millions of people from becoming homeowners, from investing in local businesses, or building personal wealth. We need lenders to live up to their obligations under the law.

The proposed changes hurt communities by diluting the very programs and entities that have proven to have the most impact in addressing inequities in lending and investment in moderate- to low-income neighborhoods. Write to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to submit your comments and concerns on the new rule (Docket ID OCC-2008-0009) here [r20.rs6.net]. Comment period has been extended until April 8 at 11:59pm EST.

AFFIRMATIVELY FURTHERING FAIR HOUSING. Implementation of AFFH has taken decades to realize. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination and established the legal duty to affirmatively further fair
housing, which requires HUD and its grantees to actively address housing discrimination and segregation and to foster inclusive communities. After years of delay and suspension of the 2015 AFFH rule published by the Obama administration, HUD is now proposing a new process that lacks transparency, detailed analysis
or local accountability.

The proposed rule significantly reduces quantitative analysis of fair housing needs by jurisdictions receiving federal housing funds, fails to include adequate community engagement, and does little to ensure accurate reporting or action is taken by a jurisdiction to further fair housing. As noted by Richard Besser, CEO and President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “HUD’s proposed changes to the rule … effectively eliminate any reference to desegregation and creating areas of opportunity. Segregation is a root cause of our nation’s race- and income-based health inequities and must be confronted. People of color and people with low incomes have less access to green space and high-quality health care in their communities and greater exposure to violence, environmental pollution, and stores selling health-harming products. Black children in more segregated counties fare worse in rates of child poverty and high school graduation than those in less segregated counties. Over the course of a lifetime, residential segregation limits wealth accumulation and social and economic mobility and contributes to lower life expectancies.” Comments to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development on the proposed AFFH rule (Docket No. FR 6123-P-02) are due March 16 at 11:59 pm EST and can be submitted here [federalregister.gov].

NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT. NEPA went into effect in 1970 and requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of their proposed action before making a decision. The review
process remains a critical federal screening mechanism to ensure that climate, environmental, and community impacts are considered before federal infrastructure decisions are finalized. It also stands as one critical tool that communities have for determining what projects get built and how they might impact the community.

Changes to the NEPA policy would create loopholes that streamline review process that could have devastating impacts on people’s health and environment and limit community engagement and public input in the NEPA process. Limiting this tool and it’s use by the public further limits processes where communities can have forums to continue speaking for themselves. Comments on the proposed NEPA rule (Docket CEQ-2019-0003) to the Council on Environmental Quality are due March 10 at 11:59 pm EST and can be shared here.

Collectively, these proposed rules reinforce former redlining practices, disempower community voice and consideration of environmental justice impacts, and eliminate any serious consideration of housing discrimination. In each case, more can be done to ensure that these existing rules and statutes work better but in all three cases this administration is moving in the wrong direction.