The White House has announced plans to “use” federal lands to create more “affordable housing.” While the effort would presumably destroy areas of wildlife that have been deliberately protected for generations, it will face some daunting headwinds.
The initiative is to be carried out by the Department of Housing Development (HUD) and the Department of the Interior. In a joint announcement from HUD Secretary Scott Turner and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the government said Monday that it was planning to use “underutilized federal Land suitable for housing to increase supply and decrease costs for millions of Americans.” The announcement was also republished as an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal weirdly titled “Federal Lands Can Be Home Sweet Home.” According to the announcement, the two agencies will work together to identify what public lands would be most suitable for conversion into commercial housing:
Under this agreement, HUD will pinpoint where housing needs are most pressing and guide the process by working with state and local leaders who know their communities best. Interior will identify locations that can support homes while carefully considering environmental impact and land-use restrictions. Working together, our agencies can take inventory of underused federal properties, transfer or lease them to states or localities to address housing needs, and support the infrastructure required to make development viable — all while ensuring affordability remains at the core of the mission.
The announcement also notes that the traditional regulatory process will be “streamlined,” presumably meaning that it will disregard environmental impact or safety concerns:
Streamlining the regulatory process is a cornerstone of this partnership. Historically, building on federal land is a nightmare of red tape — lengthy environmental reviews, complex transfer protocols and disjointed agency priorities. This partnership will cut through the bureaucracy. Interior will reduce the red tape behind land transfers or leases to public housing authorities, nonprofits and local governments. HUD will ensure these projects align with affordability goals and development needs.
The statement adds: “This isn’t a free-for-all to build on federal lands, although we recognize that bad-faith critics will likely call it that. It’s a strategic effort to use our resources responsibly while preserving our most beautiful lands.”
On the one hand, America needs more affordable housing. Much of the housing shortage is driven by a limited supply and the affordability crisis for Americans (especially young, first-time homebuyers) is real. That said, the idea that the Trump administration—which is currently a nightmare of chaos, corruption, dysfunction, and legally questionable activities—would handle this project “responsibly” and with deference to preserving the nation’s public lands, seems laughable, at best.
It’s also not clear—from the announcement—what Burgum and Turner are talking about. While it would appear that they are talking about selling off federal lands so that they can be privately developed, the announcement doesn’t say that. It just says they could be “used” in this fashion, although it’s unclear what private housing on public lands would (or could) look like, legally. Are they talking about a reservation for white people? It’s unclear.
Additionally, Trump has created a trade war with Canada out of thin air. That means lumber prices are set to skyrocket, making the cost of building housing significantly higher. Sure, we could cut down more of our own forests, but building new mills will take years.
There’s also another aspect to this situation that is worth mentioning, which is the ongoing effort by a number of wealthy investors with ties to the Trump administration to create geographical safe havens for their own dystopian urban projects.
We’ve previously reported on the plan to create so-called “Freedom Cities.” These supposed cities are being advocated for by a network of wealthy, tech-connected investors who want to take public lands, privatize them, and then use them to create anarcho-capitalist communities that play by different rules than traditional cities. These pro-corporatist cities could be made legal through the enactment of special jurisdictions, which will allow wealthy private investors to write their own laws and set up their own governance structures that could eschew traditional bureaucratic norms and practices. A lobbying group called the Freedom Cities Coalition recently met with White House officials to persuade President Trump to authorize the creation of these zones.