A scarcity of affordable housing nationwide has leaders on both ends of the political spectrum eyeing a sell-off of federal lands as a possible solution.
In July, the Bureau of Land Management began soliciting input on the proposed sale of 20 acres of public lands in the southwest Las Vegas Valley to Nevada’s Clark County Department of Social Services for affordable housing development.
If approved, the tract would be offered at below fair market value in accordance with the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act.
The plan would also require that all units sold go to first-time homebuyers, with 80 percent going to households earning no more than 80 percent of the local median income. The other 20 percent would go to those with household incomes at or below 100 percent of the median income.
“We recognize the critical need for additional affordable housing in the area and look forward to valuable feedback on the proposed sale,” Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning said on July 16.
The administration’s move comes amid an escalating housing crisis that lawmakers are becoming increasingly desperate to resolve.
In communities across the country, high costs and short supply have forced would-be homeowners out of the market. While the issue is more likely to be solved at the local level, with changes to zoning laws and regulatory red tape, federal lawmakers have put forward legislation to free up land for new housing projects.
One such bill is The Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter (HOUSES) Act, proposed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), which would allow states or local governments to purchase parcels of federal land at a reduced price in transactions like the one proposed for Nevada.
“Utah’s heart and soul lie in its communities and families. The HOUSES Act recognizes every Utahn, and every American, deserves a place to call home,” Lee said in reintroducing the bill last October.
The Center for Western Priorities is more wary.
The group, a nonpartisan conservation and advocacy organization, criticized Lee’s bill for allowing states and local governments to “nominate unlimited acres” for development, “along with a meaningless density requirement and no measures to ensure housing affordability.”
The referenced density requirement would restrict the maximum lot size to half an acre and would require the construction of at least four houses per acre.
Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, said he preferred the Biden administration’s approach.
“The Interior Department is showing how public lands that are already well-suited to development can be part of the housing solution, with appropriate safeguards to make sure the housing is affordable and doesn’t end up as trophy homes for billionaires,” Weiss said in a statement.
“That’s going to happen 20 or 30 acres at a time, not by handing thousands of acres of public land to private developers for sprawling suburbs and McMansions across pristine lands like [Nevada] Governor Lombardo and Senator Lee dream of.”
