Why vacant lots don’t get developed.

I recently learned why some vacant lots in city limits may never be used.

Now since housing is at a premium here, so is any empty or vacant lot in town. You would think that A) people would be super willing sell at all time high prices, and B) developers would be knocking on doors to get land that already has streets, water, electricity, etc. So why are there still so may empty lots in the middle of town?

What I learned is that there is a subset of landowners out there who have empty plots of land within city limits who don’t want to sell their empty land.

One reason might be that in Wyoming, landowners simply don’t want to give any money to the government. When land is sold, the seller must pay taxes on the money the receive for the land. With the land being so valuable, that ends up being a decent chunk of money given to the government which is reportedly just not acceptable for some people. So even though they would get to keep a good amount of money from the sale, out of spite for the IRS they won’t accept offers to sell.

Developing vacant lots should be part of the discussion when talking about attainable housing. From a development perspective it is much cheaper to develop land that already has infrastructure. In fact, the cost of putting in infrastructure was one of the main reasons local developers stated for high development costs. High development costs result in high housing costs.

Developing vacant city lots help with creating higher density and infill without having to spread out the boundaries of the city. While I’m an advocate for tiny houses and ADUs because of their small environmental footprint, the same goes for apartments and multi-family units. We need these empty spaces to be usable and the more people that can use them, the more people who can afford a roof over their heads, the better.

So is there a way to get people to develop vacant city lots? Should there be incentives for landowners to either sell or develop that land?

Let me know your ideas! lindsey@shegatherswool.com