By Katy O’Donnell | Politico
The White House and the Republican National Committee agree on one thing at least: The sale of surplus federal land could help alleviate a crushing shortage of affordable housing.
Proposals to sell federal land to builders for the construction of homes remarkably made their way into both the RNC’s 2024 platform and President Joe Biden’s latest housing plan, as both parties struggle to reckon with voter dissatisfaction over the soaring cost of the nation’s limited supply.
It’s simple in theory: The federal government — which owns roughly 28 percent of the land in the U.S. — would open up bidding for parcels to developers who commit to keeping a certain percentage of the units at an affordable level for the local population.
The emergence of bipartisan support for the idea is evidence that policymakers are getting increasingly desperate to resolve a housing affordability crisis that is largely the result of restrictive local zoning laws over which Washington has little control. But there are numerous hurdles to developing housing on federal land, including clashing visions between the two parties over how the program would work and concern among environmentalists about a potential giveaway to developers.
