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House committee hears DHCD briefing on inventory of state-owned land for housing
Summary
The committee received a briefing from DHCD Commissioner Alex Farrell on an executive-order-informed inventory that produced 78 candidate parcels (mostly AOT-owned) for potential housing reuse; DHCD will narrow to 5–10 parcels for deeper study and engage municipalities.
Alex Farrell, commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development, briefed the House Corrections & Institutions committee on Jan. 28 about an inventory of state-owned land and buildings undertaken under a governor’s executive order and coordinated with multiple agencies. Farrell said agencies reported data by Dec. 1 and DHCD applied four broad criteria—parcels half an acre or larger, no conservation easement, feasible site infrastructure (water/wastewater/soil), and proximity to existing roads—to identify an initial universe of candidate properties.
After excluding low-confidence and missing-geometry parcels, Farrell said the working list contains 78 parcels (about 70 AOT-owned, 7 BGS-owned, 1 ANR-owned) ranging in size from under an acre to several large parcels. Farrell told the committee he intends to narrow that universe to 5–10 parcels that present the clearest short-term opportunities for multifamily housing or other residential uses and to pursue more in-depth agency conversations in February and March, followed by municipal outreach in April–May.
Farrell emphasized that his office used conservative inclusion criteria and flagged parcels with unclear ownership boundaries to be set aside for later geospatial analysis. "The December 1 is when all the data was reported to me," Farrell said, and he acknowledged some parcels will require deeper work on constraints such as historic preservation, federal entanglements, or active project plans.
Emily Sydney, Deputy Commissioner at Buildings and General Services, said BGS performs an annual inventory process for the state's space book and supported DHCD taking the lead on the housing-suitability assessment. "It might be appropriate for DHCD to be providing that annual update directly," Sydney said, while noting BGS would collaborate and remain in the loop.
Committee members asked about the level of analysis DHCD can commit to and whether the list will be geographically distributed. Farrell said his office can produce a criteria-based list and additional detail for the top candidates but cannot promise deeply detailed feasibility studies for every parcel; he proposed focusing on test cases that could demonstrate how municipal engagement and interagency discussions work in practice.
What’s next: DHCD will proceed with in-depth agency conversations and return to the committee with a narrowed set of candidate parcels and further analysis; legislative counsel will help refine bill language so inventories and assessments are routed to the appropriate state office for annual reporting during the five-year program contemplated in the draft language.
