A federal housing agency has launched a joint task force to identify public land suitable for housing development, a step forward in the Trump administration’s promise to deliver more homes.
Scott Turner, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary, announced the initiative Monday. HUD will work alongside the Department of the Interior to identify federally protected land for housing development.
The federal government owns roughly 640 million acres, or about 28% of the 2.27 billion acres of land in the United States, according to the Library of Congress. The Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Defense, among other federal agencies, administer those properties.
"The amount and percentage of federally owned land in each state vary widely, ranging from 0.3% of land (in Connecticut and Iowa) to 80.1% of land (in Nevada). However, federal land ownership is concentrated in Alaska (60.9%) and 11 coterminous Western states (45.9%)," according to the Library of Congress.
J. Elizabeth Peace, a senior public affairs specialist for the Department of the Interior, called the task force “a collaborative effort to identify underutilized federal lands suitable for affordable housing development.” Peace said via email that the “Interior will evaluate lands based on their potential to support housing while ensuring responsible stewardship, including assessing environmental impacts, existing land-use restrictions, and the protection of national parks, wildlife refuges and other conservation areas.”
Turner did not respond to a request to comment.
Where some see a solution, others see a haste to build
Politicians like Rep. John Garamendi, Democrat of California, view the task force as an opportunity to create much-needed housing stock. “The federal government owns fast amounts of land throughout America, and without a doubt some of this land could be used for affordable housing, for example, the land around Las Vegas," Garamendi said via email. "The issue is what tracks of land would be useful for housing and what land needs to be protected for public use. Conserving America's precious public lands has been a lifelong passion, and I will always fight to protect them.”
Some housing-focused academics and professional industry groups differ on the level of impact this could have on meeting the demand. One issue? Most of the land ripe for development sits miles away from urban centers. That’s according to an examination of Forest Service land by Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit based in Bozeman, Montana. Less than one percent of the land the Forest Service manages (192.9 million acres, according to the Library of Congress) exists within a quarter of a mile of a city or town.
“Headwaters Economics found that, with the exception of isolated cases, public lands will likely not offer a solution for the country's housing shortage,” said Patty Hernandez, the organization's executive director. “What's more, many of these public land units, which initially appear suitable for housing, occur in areas with extreme wildfire risk, adjacent to airports, lack infrastructure, or have other qualities that make them inappropriate or unfeasible choices for housing.”
Higher taxes on owners of multiple single-family home properties may be a better option to free existing housing stock, said Jill Cetina, executive professor and associate director of the commercial banking program at Texas A&M University.
“Demographic trends suggest that in the coming 20 years, the U.S., like Japan, may find that it actually has too many homes, particularly in rural areas," Cetina said in an email. "It is not immediately obvious that selling federal lands is the best way to improve long-run US home affordability.”
Some organizations applauded the task force and the mission, including the National Association of Realtors.
“Lack of inventory remains one of the biggest barriers to affordability, driving up home prices and putting the dream of homeownership out of reach for too many Americans," Shannon McGahn, executive vice president and chief advocacy officer for the association. "HUD and DOI’s formation of this task force recognizes that housing is a foundational part of economic stability, and smart policy solutions such as streamlining regulatory and permitting processes can help alleviate the supply crisis."