OLYMPIA — Lawmakers looking to ease Washington’s housing shortage are advancing a bill that would provide financial incentives to spur property owners to convert commercial buildings to apartments, with an emphasis on below-market rent levels.

Under the plan, property owners would get a financial incentive to convert those empty commercial buildings to rental housing. The carrot in this case would be a 30-year property tax exemption for qualifying property owners. Representative Amy Walen introduced the bipartisan bill.

“We don’t want people driving an our a day each day, spending time away from their families to get to work. This takes so much of the vacant space that we see right now everywhere, whether it’s tall office buildings, shopping malls, strip malls, other buildings. To be dedicated to what we need most, which is housing,” said Walen.

Walen, a Democrat from Kirkland, said her bill would grant the tax exemption to property owners who earmark significant numbers of apartments in the newly converted buildings to rent at below-market rates to low- and moderate-income tenants. The bill, HB 2308, had a public hearing last week and could reach the House floor this week.