Land Use
Undeveloped Land Tax
Land Area Sqft by Category
Top 8 categories in King County, Washington State
Land Value $ by Category
Matching Top 8 categoreis in King County, Washington State
The Data Takeaway
- Vacant Land is the 2nd largest land area and the 3rd largest in land value, highlighting undeveloped land
- Multi-Family is efficient, coming in at 5.6% of land area and 2nd in land value with 10.8% of total land value
- Office is incredibly efficient, coming in at 1.8% of land area but 4th place in land value with 6.2% of total land value
- The Other category consists primarily of difficult to develop, specialty, or tax exempt parcels, such as civic, port, and utility categories
Key Points
• An Undeveloped Land Tax penalizes vacant or underutilized land inside urban growth boundaries instead of letting it sit idle.
• Long hold times on vacant parcels signal speculative behavior: landowners hoping to profit from appreciation without ever building.
• Goal: a shrinking number of vacant urban parcels and shorter average hold times, as holding land gets costlier than developing it.
What is it?
An Undeveloped Land Tax means applying a tax penalty to land within urban growth boundaries that sits vacant or underutilized rather than being developed. Where Land Value Tax addresses the underlying incentive structure of the property tax system, this priority addresses the behavioral outcome directly. It targets parcels that are being held speculatively, often for years or decades, while housing demand goes unmet around them.
Why an Undeveloped Land Tax Matters
Vacant and underutilized land inside urban growth boundaries represents some of the most valuable, well-located opportunity for new housing in the state, sitting unused while the area around it grows more expensive and more constrained. Long average hold times on these parcels are a direct signal of speculative behavior, where landowners profit from rising land values without ever building, betting on future appreciation rather than current use. An undeveloped land tax raises the cost of that strategy, creating direct financial pressure to develop, sell to someone who will, or otherwise put well-located urban land to productive use rather than sitting on it indefinitely.
Where We Want to Be
The goal is a steady decline in the number of vacant and underutilized parcels within urban growth boundaries, as a tax penalty makes continued speculative holding less attractive relative to development. Average hold times on vacant urban parcels should shorten over time, reflecting land moving into productive use faster rather than sitting idle through multiple market cycles. Together with Land Value Tax, this priority closes off both sides of speculative land holding, the favorable tax treatment that makes it profitable and the absence of any cost to inaction that makes it easy. The vision is well-located urban land that gets built on within a reasonable timeframe, not land treated as a passive investment vehicle while a housing shortage persists around it.