SPOKANE, Wash. — The East Central Neighborhood in Spokane could see more changes along the I-90 corridor. 

The legislature passed senate bill 5853, which would allow the department of transportation to lease state property near Interstate 90 and the north Spokane corridor back to the community. Thomas Speight’s house used to be near 3rd and myrtle.

“They were buying all the property up,” Speight said. “The state came through and offered us good money for the house. So I told my mom to sell.”

The Speight family was one of the hundreds that sold their house in 2010. This forces Speight to move out of the East Central neighborhood.

“I felt ties to the neighborhood,” Speight said.

So much so that he ended up opening his bakery Spokane Cheesecake a year later in the neighborhood. Now that the state plans to lease surplus land back to the community, Speight hopes that the property will be turned into affordable housing. State Senator Andy Billig says most likely it will, and this bill aims to reconnect the neighborhood.

“This is a part also of a national conversation and a conversation throughout our state about writing some of the wrongs from the past with highway construction, Billig said.

According to the bill, whoever leases the land will pay less than the market value, but the exact cost is still undetermined.