Western state governors eye public lands for affordable housing development

In Las Vegas, a bipartisan coalition of governors from across the West met this week to discuss policy ideas they say could aid their efforts to increase the supply of housing. 

“The West is unique in that the federal government has a large footprint in our area, whether it’s the Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said during a press conference Monday, “and so a lot of the work that we need to do for community planning, for growth, for housing, it really relies on strong federal partnerships.” 

In Nevada, where 80% of land is owned by the federal government, officials are utilizing a two-decades-old federal law to acquire parcels from the Bureau of Land Management for development at a fraction of the land’s market value. 

“While access to land is only a piece of the housing puzzle, in places like Clark County, where we are today, available land for development is slated to run out by 2032,” said Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo. 

The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act was passed in 1998, but the state “became more aware of that provision in the last three years and has developed specific policy that allows us to sell lands to qualified affordable housing authorities,” Bureau of Land Management Nevada state director John Raby said. 

By selling land at a heavily discounted rate, Raby said the agency is able to help developers undergo cost-effective housing projects that target lower-income residents — usually those making around 80% of the area’s median income. 

Development company Ovation is one of the groups building income-based housing on recently sold federal land, with plans to build 390 units on a parcel in the Las Vegas area. 

Chief executive officer Jess Molasky said utilizing former Bureau of Land Management land has helped save time and money. Purchasing land that has already been appraised by the agency, for example, shaved off about a year of process. 

“We’ve had great success,” Molasky said. “There’s a lot to learn from what we’re doing.”

In Colorado, the mountain resort community of Summit County became the first in the nation to lease land from the U.S. Forest Service — which controls more than three-fourths of the area’s land — for the purpose of building affordable housing. 

The agreement, approved last fall, will allow officials to build 162 income-restricted rental units on an 11-acre parcel of land, with several of those units going to Forest Service workers and the rest to county residents making between 80% and 120% of the area’s median income.

Both initiatives, however, face limitations. 

The Forest Service recently lost its ability to lease land to local governments after Congress failed to renew the measure in its latest government funding bill. Polis said his administration is working with Colorado’s delegation of federal lawmakers to push for a renewal of the provision. 

The 1998 law allowing the Bureau of Land Management to sell parcels of land for housing development is specific to Nevada. Other Western states have yet to replicate such efforts. 

In an attempt to expand the policy, Utah Sen. Mike Lee has introduced federal legislation that would allow state governments across the country to purchase certain land from the federal agency to build single-family homes. Protected areas like national monuments, parks and wilderness areas would not be eligible for purchase. 

“We’re hoping that people will support that bill,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. 

Officials are also beginning to unlock state-owned land for public-private housing partnerships. 

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said following the 2023 wildfires that ravaged Maui and displaced thousands, the government created a modular housing community on a parcel of vacant, state-owned land. 

While the development is only intended to provide transitional housing for the survivors, Green said the infrastructure is now in place to build permanent, longer-term housing sometime in the future. 

Colorado’s legislature has taken steps to spur development on state-owned land, allocating $13 million last year to incentivize such efforts.  

The group of  Western governors is set to meet later this month in Utah and then again in January in Oregon to discuss affordable housing efforts as part of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Building Resilient and Affordable New Developments in the West initiative. 

Lujan Grisham said a focus on how to utilize public lands will likely remain a centerpiece of those conversations. 

“You can’t meet the needs of both your economy and workforce housing unless we start to figure that out,” Lujan Grisham said.