Most productive Americans would agree that owning a home is a major part of achieving the ever-elusive American Dream. Owning a home gives one a stake in one’s domicile; it gives one a stake in one’s neighborhood and community. However, it is a piece of the American Dream that is increasingly out of reach for many of our younger generations.
That’s too bad. But there’s a proposal to make that a little easier by using federal lands that are adjacent to some of our urban and suburban areas to ease the housing supply crisis and thus lower prices – but there are several catches.
President Trump must follow through on his campaign pledge “to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction.”
The housing market depends largely on interest rates and zoning — factors outside any president’s direct control. But the massive federal land portfolio gives middle- and lower-income Americans a better shot at homeownership. The federal government is the nation’s biggest landowner, holding one-third of all property — a land mass six times the size of California.
Much of that federal land, of course, isn’t particularly useful for housing. It’s remote, it’s inhospitable, or otherwise not suited. But there are exceptions, and some federal land is well-placed:
In , Phoenix, Albuquerque and other metro areas, federal lands brush up against the suburban periphery. Since President Trump launched the idea of “Freedom Cities” on federal land, the opening of federal lands for development has entered the policy mainstream. House Budget Committee Republicans have floated the sale of federal lands as an option for closing the deficit.
We should look at any proposal to sell these lands outright with suspicion. First of all, dumping a lot of land at once onto the market would 1) drive down the price and 2) largely be bought up by major developers and investors rather than small builders. Also, it’s unlikely that any money gained from these sales would apply to the deficit or the federal debt; it would likely be used like most federal income is used, to buy votes.
The solution? Leasing.
To create affordable homes on federal lands, the federal government shouldn’t sell lands for development — it should lease them. The sale of federal lands requires the buyer to comply with state and local regulations once the land is privatized, likely with the same awful result. Leasing the federal lands, on the other hand, cuts through the red tape.
Local land-use policies that make housing a luxury good in many parts of the U.S. — such as California’s solar mandate and the state’s aversion to suburban developments that rely on “car-oriented transportation” — do not apply on federal lands. Anti-growth locals and density-obsessed planners stay sidelined.
That sounds good, but there’s a problem: Current federal law only allows for leasing federal land for commercial purposes. There would have to be legislation passed through Congress that would allow for leasing this land for housing.
For more than a century, federal law has long authorized federal leases for commercial purposes such as mineral extraction. Congress should update its land-use laws, including the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, to authorize federal leases for housing development, subject to standard public health and environmental protections. Call it the New Homestead Act after the 1862 legislation, which — in Lincoln’s — was enacted “so that every poor man may have a home.”
There are pros and cons to this idea.
