If the Trump White House wants to show how developing federal land can lower housing prices, it should start in Las Vegas.
On Monday, HUD Secretary Scott Turner and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced a partnership between their agencies. They want to “identify and open under-utilized federal lands for affordable housing,” as Mr. Turner wrote on X.
The federal government has plenty of land available. It controls more than 600 million acres, around 25 percent of the country’s total land. Federal land ownership is especially high in Western states, and it’s most onerous in Nevada. The federal government runs around 85 percent of the land in the Silver State.
Many people assume that all this federal land is either for the military or for preserving landscapes such as national monuments or national parks. It’s not. In 2022, the Military Times reported that the armed services controls around 27 million acres in the United States The National Park Service manages more than 85 million acres, which includes more than national parks.
That leaves more than 500 million acres under federal stewardship, the vast majority of which couldn’t be described as environmentally sensitive.
The federal hegemony also stymies efforts at private development. That’s a major problem in Clark County. Of its 5.1 million acres, the federal government controls 4.5 million of them. This includes more than 3 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
As the Review-Journal’s Patrick Blennerhassett recently reported, there are only 25,000 acres of developable land left in the county. It could all be gone within seven years. As supply and demand dictates, a decrease in developable land puts upward pressure on prices. It’s a contributing factor to Las Vegas’ increasingly unaffordable housing market.
If Las Vegas were on an island, this lack of developable land might make sense. But it’s not. The Las Vegas metro area is surrounded by vacant desert. The only reason it’s not available to build on is federal ownership. To help lower housing prices, Gov. Joe Lombardo and local leaders want more land for development. In some states, the Trump administration may encounter local officials who stymie new development with red tape. Local governments here want more construction.
Mr. Turner and Mr. Burgum shouldn’t be stingy. The federal government should release at least 2 million acres in Clark County to a combination of state and local governments and builders. Then, they should relinquish control of parcels in rural Nevada to spur development there.
Las Vegas is a prime place to begin the Trump administration’s efforts to open more government land for housing — and the sooner, the better.
