California yesterday announced an expansion of its programme to release public land for housing development. The office of Governor Gavin Newsom also launched a web portal to make it easier for developers to bid for schemes.
The revamped Excess Sites Programme aims to speed up the leasing of state land for affordable housing.
“California is doing everything we can to give all Californians access to affordable housing as quickly as possible. Today we continue to advance our strategy of transforming underutilised state properties into thriving affordable living communities for Californians,” Newsom said.
Developers can review all sites on the Excess Sites map and submit proposals continuously until an awardable submission is received and a deadline is set for the site.
The scheme is being run by the Department of General Services (DGS) and Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). It aims to make available all state land identified as suitable for affordable housing.
In 2019, Newsom issued an executive order to scale up the state’s response to a housing crisis he said had been “decades in the making”.
According to the office of the governor, HCD and DGS have assembled a pipeline of just 4,300 housing units across 32 sites since then.
The state estimates that new sites being released have the capacity for at least 2,000 homes.
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