A plan announced last week by the White House includes a nationwide cap on rent increases. But another element of the proposal — the allocation of surplus federal land to be dedicated to affordable housing construction — may have been lost in the mix, especially following the Democratic shake-up in the upcoming presidential election
“The White House will work with federal agencies with land disposition authorities, as well as agencies that provide financing tools for housing and needed infrastructure — with a goal of quickly building more housing that is affordable for working families and climate resilient, which will bring down energy costs, while protecting local lands and waters,” according to an announcement issued by the White House.
But for states with large amounts of federal lands, like Utah, questions are naturally emerging about how such a plan would interact with a large swath of the state, according to reporting by The Salt Lake Tribune.
“The call to use public lands for affordable housing could be of particular interest in Utah — where more than half of the land is federally controlled,” the report explained. “And it begs the question — what federal lands are considered ‘surplus?’ There are nearly 12,000 acres of ‘buildable, government-owned land in urban, transit-accessible communities’ in Utah,” according to a study from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Center for Geospatial Solutions as cited in the reporting.
Based on 2020 data from the Congressional Research Service, there are nearly 53 million acres of land in Utah. And more than 33 million acres — or 63.1% of the state — is federally owned.
George McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute, explained that a perception of federal lands that somehow limits the construction of affordable housing is not accurate.
Conservation groups lauded the White House plan, and the Biden administration pointed to a recent sale of 20 acres of federal land in Nevada as an example of what could be accomplished in other states. But that sale falls under the provision of prior legislation passed in 1998, which allows the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to acquire different parcels of federal land and put them to more productive use for housing development.
The Tribune reached Nevada-based BLM official Ron Mobley about the measure. Mobley confirmed that Nevada’s policy had not changed and hoped that the White House’s recent move could potentially benefit other states.
