Trump Begins Push to Use Federal Land for New Housing

Donald Trump is preparing to leverage federal land to boost the nation’s housing stock.

The Trump administration is launching a taskforce to identify government land that is suitable for housing development, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Interior Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development will lead the taskforce.

The initiative will brush up against challenges well known in the homebuilding industry. Infrastructure and zoning — and NIMBYism — could make building more difficult on the local level. Environmental and logistical concerns could also end up at play, not to mention material costs at risk of surging during the trade war with Canada and other countries.

The government could sell land to private developers, though that would be on a case-by-case basis, according to a HUD representative. The administration may also work to transfer or lease suitable parcels to local governments, nonprofits or public housing authorities.

Freeing up federal land for development — either by leasing or transferring parcels — could yield big results. The Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Interior, has 512,000 acres in its footprint, which would be enough to yield between three and four million homes, according to the American Enterprise Institute.

Much of the federal land, however, is located in rural states like Utah and Idaho, which aren’t facing the same level of housing shortages as other parts of the nation. Only 7.3 percent of federal land — 47 million acres — is within metro areas in need of more homes, according to data from the National Association of Realtors.

The idea has been touted by both parties. During last year’s vice presidential debate, both J.D. Vance and Tim Walz supported building housing on federal land. Walz, however, cited concern for preserving national parks and noted the limited availability of federal land in hot housing markets.

The federal government owns 650 million acres, more than a quarter of all land in the country, making it the biggest landlord in the United States.

— Holden Walter-Warner