The Trump administration has indicated that it would like to sell federal public lands to develop housing, which it says could help address the nation’s housing crisis. Some lawmakers have already proposed selling public lands in Utah and Nevada.

Now, a new study from nonpartisan, nonprofit land management group, Headwaters Economics, says that in the West, federal public lands aren’t well suited for housing, and may even present other safety and logistical challenges for developers.

Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Caroline Llanes spoke with Megan Lawson, one of the economists who worked on the study, to find out more.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Llanes: So this idea of selling public lands for housing, it's one that's gotten a lot of attention and buzz lately, but it's not a new idea. Can you tell me a little bit about the context around this conversation and where that idea comes from?

Lawson: Specifically, we dug into this research now because this was brought up by both parties in the presidential campaign, and right now Congress and the President are talking about how we can sell public lands for housing and to balance the budget. And so we dug into the data to see if public lands indeed are a viable solution for housing affordability across the country.

There's precedent for this both with BLM land and Forest Service land, but they have been on parcels that are sort of in holdings like within communities or directly adjacent to them, so there have been a lot of really strong guardrails around those. And like with the Forest Service lands, the Forest Service was not selling off these properties, these parcels for the most part. The Forest Service was leasing these parcels, like long-term leases for housing developments. It had been authorized before in the Farm Bill and was reauthorized under a different umbrella (the EXPLORE Act) back in January of this year.

Llanes: Yeah, so tell me a little bit about the study that Headwaters did. Where were you looking and what data did you guys look at?

Lawson: We wanted to do a national analysis to see if building housing on public lands could be a large-scale solution to the housing challenges that we're facing. Because it was a national analysis, we had to simplify some things. So we just looked at Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service administrative parcels that are really close to communities, so either adjacent to, within, or within a quarter mile of communities that have historically not been building enough housing—they have unmet housing needs, which is so many of our communities in the West. We really wanted to focus on those parcels that are closest to communities, those public land parcels, because if a builder has to extend infrastructure like roads and electricity and drinking water and wastewater, if they have to extend that far outside of town, whatever housing that gets built will be really expensive, just because of the cost of infrastructure will be so expensive. So we really just focused on those lands that were closest to town.

But because we had to make some simplifying assumptions because of the scale of this analysis, I think it's an overestimate of the land, because things that we were not able to consider: water availability, topography—you know, a lot of these places are steep and rugged. We were not able to consider other important uses of those public lands already, like wildlife habitat, endangered species protection, oil and gas leases that may already be on these properties, recreational leases like trails that may already be in those areas. So we cast a pretty broad net in terms of the types of land that we considered possible.

Llanes: And what were some of the big takeaways from this study?

Lawson: So the first thing that we found is that the amount of federal (public) land that is available near these communities is really pretty limited and it's about 2% of public lands that we looked at. But when we dug into that a little bit… one thing that Headwaters Economics really keeps a close eye on is wildfire exposure for communities. And we found that about half of that land faces really high wildfire risk. We want to be sure when we're building new housing, that we're not putting more people in harm's way. We also found that, overall, looking across the country, that we could possibly build about 700,000 homes on public lands adjacent to communities. But that's very focused just in a handful of states: Nevada, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Utah.

So, the number of homes that could be built and could be built safely without putting people in harm's way is pretty small compared to overall the need for housing. And we also know that from research that we've done that really, land constraints aren't always the problem. There's so many other challenges that come with building housing, which is why we're sort of in the pickle that we are now. Housing is complicated, and many communities don't have the construction labor force. So we don't have the folks who can build that housing. Financing has been hard to come by and can be a challenge, especially in our more rural communities. And water and infrastructure is also a challenge.

Llanes: So something that I thought was really interesting was the tools and policy recommendations that you guys make as it relates to public lands and housing. Tell me a little bit more about those.

Lawson: I think the most important thing to remember is that public land development really should be strategic and safeguarded. We have to make sure that we're protecting the value of this asset for all Americans, and so that if housing is being built on the public lands, that we have tools to make sure that housing is permanently affordable, so it improves housing affordability in our communities. We need to make sure we're looking first at infill, which is building housing within the footprint of our existing communities. So whether that's maybe a public land parcel within our community, or it's an undeveloped private parcel, those things will help to minimize infrastructure costs because a lot of homes could be built on land that's already available when we focus on density and infrastructure investments.

I think another tool that we need to keep in mind with the Forest Service, current authorization allows them to lease the land rather than selling it. I think leasing public lands is a better way to preserve their long-term value, rather than selling them outright. Another policy that, again, we think about a lot and do a lot of research on is resilient building standards and making sure that any homes that we're building in a wildfire zone are hardened against the risk of wildfire. And then finally, making sure that our rural and small communities have the technical assistance to navigate the complexities of working with our federal land management agencies to make sure that those developers have access to financing, and that they're able to build affordably.

Llanes: So how does this conversation fit into the bigger picture we're seeing today, especially as the Trump administration targets public lands, some for sale, especially out here in the West?

Lawson: There's been a lot of conversation around selling off public lands to build housing and selling off public lands, to balance the budget. But if we are selling off public lands at the market rate, auctioning it off to the highest bidder, we're going to be auctioning off high value lands. That's going to cost a lot. And just by definition, those lands are not going to be affordable. We're not going be able to build affordable housing. And so that will really be a sell-off to benefit a small number of people who are able to afford that higher-end, more luxury housing. It is not going to help housing affordability in our gateway public lands communities. If anything, it's going to make it worse, contributing to the rising cost of living.

The second thing that I think about when we're talking about selling off public lands for any reason is I think it overlooks how much our western gateway communities depend on those public lands for their economy and for their economic well-being in so many ways. Whether it's resource extraction—oil and gas, mining—whether it's agriculture, whether it's outdoor recreation, you know, so many communities have really built up around this. And they've also invested a lot of private sector investment in, say, a guiding business that takes folks out hiking on trails near a community. That business depends on those public lands being well-maintained, those trails being well-maintained and being able to access them. I'm really concerned that if selling public lands really continues to get momentum, that will have a really negative impact on these smaller communities, especially these rural places that have invested everything in their economic development around recreation on public lands.

Llanes: That was Megan Lawson. She is an economist at Headwaters Economics and the author of their new study, looking at wildfire risk and development challenges as it relates to public lands available for housing. Megan, thank you so much for talking with Rocky Mountain Community Radio.

Lawson: Thank you, Caroline.

Copyright 2025 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.