BLM, HUD target public lands for housing

Eyeing opportunities to spur development of affordable housing, the Trump administration sees low-hanging fruit in the country’s federal land inventory.

A memorandum of understanding between the departments of Interior and Housing and Urban Development has spurred progress toward identifying and streamlining the transfer of that land to state and local governments and nonprofit housing developers. 

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has identified 535,000 acres that it manages within four miles of the municipal limits of towns with at least 5,000 residents. Those acres would be eligible for transfer.

“Working together, our agencies can inventory underused federal properties, transfer or lease them to states and localities to address housing needs, …  and ensure that affordability remains the core of the mission,” said John Raby, acting BLM director. Raby spoke remotely to Western Interstate Region Conference attendees May 22 in Pennington County, S.D. 

Raby stressed that the tight parameters for identifying relevant BLM land added up to two one-thousandths of a percent of available BLM land.

“It’s very small in context for the rest of what we are responsible for, but it can have a big impact locally” for communities experiencing growth against a barrier of public land, he said. 

The bureau will soon release a map of eligible parcels. 

“Before we take any disposal actions, we have to undertake an expedited review and go through clearance processes so that we’re all in accordance with federal laws, regulations, agency policy, which includes, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and as always, public input,” he said.

That detail concerns Washington County, Utah Commissioner Adam Snow, who said he feels that the NEPA process is too often weaponized against development.

“As long as NEPA is involved, whether it’s the sale of lands or anything where the public gets involved, it’s been weaponized against us in so many different ways,” he said. “It will be weaponized against us until the system has changed and how we can deal with the disposal, construction of infrastructure, and therefore the attainable housing that we all need in the West. If NEPA is involved in the disposal at all, if we still have to go through public comment; I know that sounds bad, but when the public gets engaged, somebody is going to think that this is the most pristine, amazing land in the world and will block and sue.”

Snow said the public’s perception of public lands is somewhat warped, which may slow the property transfer process, using an example from road improvements on a public right-of-way.

“Some of the groups made this sound like I was trying to sell off Zion National Park,” he said. “With the disposal of any of these lands, as long as somebody’s going to be able to join it, because you didn’t go through some meticulous process, will mean that this sounds really good and in a year or five years, we’ll all be in the same room having the same discussion, because nothing actually changes if we can’t remove some of those barriers for selfish interest groups to come in and stop all that.”

Whether the public lands effort will include federal subsidies for construction, permitting or other ancillary processes is not yet apparent. NACo Legislative Director Zeke Lee said that although HUD’s role in the process is still unclear, NACo has submitted a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and HUD Secretary Scott Turner asking for counties to be represented on their housing task force.

Mono County, Calif. Supervisor Jennifer Kreitz would like to see the U.S. Forest Service, part of the Department of Agriculture, join the effort.

“We have a lot of Forest Service land that’s adjacent to our communities, and it would be great to have them be willing to play like the BLM,” she said.

There is certainly a constituency for workforce housing in public lands counties.

“We’ve had quite a bit of interest in looking at opportunities for housing in and around Carlsbad [in Eddy County, N.M.] because we have so much oil and gas activity, we have a need for housing not only the oil and gas workers and other support industry, supporting staff, but also our federal workers as well,” Raby said.

Snow pointed out that although public lands counties often see seasonal population swells, the people who work there need year-round housing.

“How are you able to live and enjoy the area if nobody can serve you and at the restaurant, at the store? If you can’t afford the basic inputs of the society from that more attainable housing level, than having access to the conservation lands or the other things are really irrelevant,” he said. 

“It's hard to go visit a national park,” he noted. “There are no services when you get there, right? It’s hard to go recreate in other places if we don’t have the industry that can support that year-round.” 

The plan still faces practical obstacles, as illustrated by Humboldt County, Nev. Commissioner Ken Tipton. His county’s seat, Winnemucca, is more than two hours from Reno, the closest metropolitan area.

“We don’t have the builders to build the moderate-income houses in the first place, because we are a very rapidly growing community, but the builders that are there, they would rather build $500,000, $600,000 or $1 million homes,” he said. “We don’t have the builders, and we don’t have housing for builders, if we can find the builder to come in.”

Humboldt County is home to the Thacker Pass, primed to become the world’s largest lithium mine, and the high-paying jobs associated with the mine will cut the legs out from most subsidy opportunities.

“We don’t have a lot of low-income housing, and we don’t qualify because our economy is basically gold mining,” and soon lithium mining, Tipton said.

“I’m hopeful, with a lot of reservations,” he said.

Nevada has a history of federal land sales through the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, which has transferred 64 acres to Clark County, an area that could support 1,300 housing units.

Kurt Preszler, president of the South Dakota Home Builders Association, said time is of the essence with any housing development.

“You’ve got to get these houses up fast, so these people that are coming in can move to them fast,” he said.  “Building materials are always going to go up, so we need to start looking for alternatives. Maybe it’s time to build houses smaller, like in the 1970s.” 

Infrastructure costs will always be an issue, he noted, so solving the land problem is only the start.

Tipton said that counties could prepare for whatever comes next for this federal effort by ensuring that planning and zoning codes are ready for the land to become available. 

“Make sure they’re all in place to do what you want to do with this land,” he said.