HUD, Department of Interior promote housing on federal lands

The Trump administration is pushing to use federal lands for affordable housing development. 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of the Interior announced a Joint Task Force on Federal Land for Housing. The partnership first revealed in a Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed will weigh housing options for the nation's over 500 million acres of federal land, "much of it suitable for residential use," department heads wrote. 

"Historically, building on federal land is a nightmare of red tape — lengthy environmental reviews, complex transfer protocols and disjointed agency priorities," wrote HUD Secretary Scott Turner and DOI Secretary Doug Burgum. "This partnership will cut through the bureaucracy." 

DOI will streamline land transfers or leases to public housing authorities, non-profits and local governments, and consider environmental impacts and land-use restrictions for development. HUD will work with state and local leaders and ensure alignment with affordability goals, the departments said. 

"This isn't a free-for-all to build on federal lands, although we recognize that bad-faith critics will likely call it that," wrote Burgum and Turner. 

Turner in a video announcement with Burgum suggested the move will help the nation meet its shortage of 7 million affordable homes. That estimate is far greater than other industry stakeholders, who typically estimate ranges between 1.5 million homes and 4 million homes. 

The effort to develop affordable housing on federal land began late in the Biden administration, when it sold 20 acres of public lands for $100 per acre last October in the Las Vegas area, part of a 2023 memorandum of understanding between DOI and HUD. 

Daniel Hornung, a former deputy director of Biden's National Economic Council who oversaw housing, supported the Trump administration's move but addressed challenges with the effort. Regions with stronger housing demand, such as the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, don't have a lot of federal land and areas with abundant federal land could lack access to employment opportunities and infrastructure. 

"Where these processes really need to begin is trying to understand where there's both land that we're building is possible and where infrastructure needs are met," he said Monday. 

The task force said Monday it will focus on "overlooked rural and tribal communities," and also said it would support infrastructure required to make developments viable. 

"I think it's important also not to overstate this as some kind of panacea for housing policy generally," Hornung said.