The Biden administration looks to build more affordable housing

The Biden administration is looking to sell 20 acres of federal land near Las Vegas and use it for affordable housing.

The Bureau of Land Management parcel would go to Clark County for below fair market value. The administration calls it the “largest-ever” sale for affordable housing under a Nevada-specific program.

John Leshy, an environmental law professor at UC San Francisco, said selling federal land often worries conservationists.

“You know, that’s a slippery slope,” he said. “The next thing we’re going to do is sell off Yosemite or Yellowstone or someplace like that.”

Politicians from both parties are eyeing public lands as a solution to the housing crisis. Some proposals, Leshy said, have few guardrails.

The Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter — or HOUSES Act — introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), for example, would allow a state or local government to nominate public land for residential development, but there’s no requirement for the housing to be affordable.

This latest proposal in the Las Vegas area is different, Leshy said. It’s rooted in a 25-year-old law called the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act that has allowed the BLM to sell federal land within a specific Las Vegas Valley boundary in order to acquire other environmentally sensitive tracts or to improve parks, wildlife refuges and recreational areas.

“I think you have to distinguish this from proposals that you see from time to time made by anti-government people who just want the federal government to get rid of all of its countries,” he said.

Additionally, state and local governments have first dibs on the land for sale under the act and there’s an affordability mandate for sales below fair market value. Clark County estimates that the country could support 150 homes for first-time homebuyers making no more than 80% of the area median income, which was $69,300 for a family of four in fiscal year 2023.

The BLM is accepting public comments on the proposal through Sept. 3.

The White House is calling on other federal agencies, as well as state and local governments, school districts and faith communities, to identify whether land they hold could also be suitable for affordable housing.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio (KNPR) in Las Vegas, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.