Massachusetts is unleashing land for housing developers.
Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll on Monday released an inventory of more than 450 acres of surplus state-owned land identified for housing development. The land is expected to house roughly 3,500 units across the state.
The state plans to make 17 sites available to developers over the next year. Requests for Proposals will be issued for 10 of those sites, while an auction is expected to be held for the other sites this September.
“These 450 acres will be turned into thousands of new homes that families, seniors and workers can actually afford,” Healey said in a statement.
A handful of state agencies spent the past year going through the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance’s property inventory to identify the state-owned sites, which are considered to be underutilized and viable for housing development. The selected sites exempt protected open space, wetlands and flood plains.
Several projects are already underway on the surplus land. Those include the redevelopment of the 175-acre former Boston State Hospital campus in Mattapan, the 241-unit redevelopment of the former Veterans Home at Chelsea — slated to break ground this year — and the redevelopment of a parcel in Roxbury that will include 100 units of housing, retail storefronts, a location for the National Center for Afro-American Artists and a public park.
In the next six months, RFPs are expected to be issued for vacant court buildings in Lowell and Fitchburg, as well as for vacant lots near the campuses of Bridgewater State University and Middlesex Community College.
The governor’s administration set a goal of creating and preserving 65,000 housing units in the next five years.
“By unlocking public land, we’re turning surplus lots into living communities — because everyone deserves a key to their own future,” Driscoll added in a statement.