Spokane’s unique approach to creating more affordable housing is catching on statewide.
In Spokane’s Community Building today, state Representative Natasha Hill and a dozen others gathered in front of a TV to watch Governor Bob Ferguson sign her bill that allows land banks across Washington.
Land banks are typically nonprofits that buy land other organizations consider undesirable for development. Sometimes parcels are polluted or foreclosed properties held by governments that want to get rid of them. A land bank can help get those parcels ready for development and then sell them.
Spokane has the only nonprofit land bank devoted to affordable housing in Washington. But others have been eying the idea for their communities, says Spokane Regional Land Bank Executive Director Ami Manning.
“We got involved with some folks from the west side who had identified land banks as a strategy to scale the starter home production,” Manning said. “But they had nobody really from the east side that they had connected to.”
“This bill came from Spokane and it came from the work that our Spokane Land Bank has been doing,” Hill said. “We knew that we needed legislation in order to enable them to be able to do this and get some additional benefits.”
The legislation allows land banks to hold parcels without having to pay state and local tax on them. It also requires counties to give land banks priority when they look to find other uses for surplus land.
“This is not the answer to everything, but this is a way that we can really work on reclaiming our neighborhoods, work on those commercial properties that the governor was talking about that are just vacant and not in use,” Manning said. “There's a lot of opportunity in this bill, but it's not everything.”
