Latest news with #SouthernNevadaPublicLandManagementAct
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘One Big Beautiful Bill' moves ahead minus target on Clark County land, Colorado River water
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Montana Republican's threat to vote against the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' ultimately spelled the demise of a Nevada congressman's attempt to sell off public lands in Clark County, Northern Nevada and Utah. U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) infuriated conservation advocates and Nevada Democrats with his amendment, tacked onto the multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package in a late-night session last week. But the amendment died as Republicans determined they couldn't risk bringing the bill to a vote without Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke's vote. The bill passed early Thursday by a 215-214 vote. It wouldn't have been that close, but two Republicans missed the vote. According to a report by The Hill, New York Republican Andrew Garbarino 'fell asleep in the back, no kidding,' and Arizona Republican David Schweikert arrived after the vote had closed. Another Republican voted 'present.' 'I'm happy that my Republican colleagues, led by Rep. Zinke, acknowledged that it would wrongfully change the way federal lands are managed,' U.S. Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) said in a statement Wednesday night. 'They stood their ground, and we were able to stop the unprecedented Amodei proposal.' Lee's office said land marked for sale in Amodei's proposal lined up with the public land that Utah has been targeting for its Lake Powell Pipeline, which would send water to St. George and other Utah communities. 'If this land were sold and the pipeline were built, it could divert 28 billion gallons of water each year from Lake Powell and the Colorado River to communities in southern Utah, away from Nevada and the other Basin states,' according to a news release. 'This is a huge win for Nevada's and the Southwest's water security,' Lee said. For decades, federal law has ensured that proceeds from land sales in Southern Nevada stay in Nevada, reinvested in projects for parks and recreation, and also partially allocated to the Southern Nevada Water Authority. That all happens through the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act (SNPLMA). Amodei's amendment would have sent these proceeds to the federal government to subsidize tax cuts in the 'One Big Beautiful Bill.' U.S. Rep. Dina Titus also fought against Amodei's proposal, offering her own amendment to reverse that plan. In an interview Wednesday night with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Amodei expressed frustration. 'You might have played checkers for a week, but the chess game starts now,' Amodei said. That report indicated more than 65,000 acres in Clark County would have been sold. Zinke was appointed Secretary of the Interior at the start of President Donald Trump's first term, but left less than two years later amid ethics investigations. Sierra Club leaders declared a win. 'This is proof that when people fight for the things and places they love, they win,' Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, said in a statement. 'Nevadans stood up, raised hell, and made it crystal clear: our public lands are not for sale. Let this be the dawn of a new day in Nevada and across the country, and let us all say once and for all: no land sales at the expense of communities today, not tomorrow, not ever,' Tanager said. Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, said, 'We hope that Zinke's move sends a strong message to lawmakers of all stripes: We can never break the public trust and the Colorado River for billionaire tax breaks.' The Associated Press contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion - Building homes on federal land could lower costs — if cities are held in check
The Departments of the Interior and Housing and Urban Development are exploring making some federal land available for homebuilding to alleviate a stubborn housing shortage estimated at over 20 million homes. Their success will depend not only on how quickly and broadly the plan is implemented, but on making sure any newly opened land is not bogged down by the local land use regulations that make housing so scarce and expensive in the first place. The current home shortage is primarily due to excessively restrictive local land-use rules that favor relatively expensive homes on large lots. But particularly in western states, land for homebuilding is limited by federal holdings near fast-growing metropolitan areas like Las Vegas, Phoenix and many others. Western land was opened to large-scale settlement through 1862's Homestead Act, which resulted in the sale of more than 420,000 square miles — around 11 percent of the country — in blocks of up to 160 acres, typically to small farmers. As quality agricultural land grew scarce, claims plummeted and nearly dried up by the 1930s. In 1946, the Bureau of Land Management was formed, reflecting a shift from sales toward maintaining land that had not attracted buyers. In 1976, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act repealed the Homestead Act, signaling an embrace of federal ownership and management, growing environmental concern and other changing currents in public opinion. But in the following years, something else changed: The rapid growth of sunbelt cities made valuable land once thought worthless. But selling federal land had become complex and politically fraught under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and western cities began to chafe against confinement. By the 1990s, the situation had become too pressing to ignore. The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act authorized the Bureau of Land Management to transfer certain land to address a housing shortage in Las Vegas. Its success has been mixed, with around 40 percent of the designated land still unsold. Land that has been sold has been subject to municipal zoning, which typically imposes restrictions such as minimum lot sizes, frontage requirements, setbacks and other mandates that hinder builders from constructing low-cost houses. Today, western states such as Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, California and Oregon have some of the highest home price-to-income ratios in the nation. Hemmed in by federal land and burdened by their own expensive regulations, cities that should be centers of opportunity for a new generation are instead starter-home deserts. New houses are prohibitively expensive for too many buyers. The new initiative promises to revisit the Federal Land Policy and Management Act's assumptions in a comprehensive way that encompasses all affected municipalities. Done right, it could cut through burdensome procedural barriers to selling federal land, relieve cost pressures on western urban markets, allow new cities to grow in appropriate locations and remain attentive to environmental and conservation concerns. But the number of resulting homes that most Americans can comfortably afford will be closely tied to local land use regulations. In Reno, Nevada, I found that new homes on lots smaller than 5,000 square feet appraised at an average of $343,000, while those on 5,000-to-7,000-foot lots were appraised at $461,000. Yet less than 10 percent of the single-family lots in Reno — and zero percent of the area of one major development district — allows homes on less than 5,000 square feet of land. Frontage requirements also played a role in Reno. Each additional 10 mandated feet corresponded with an extra $60,000 in home costs. So, unless the Bureau of Land Management and HUD push back against local policies like these by attaching robust, enforceable conditions to transfers or negotiating ironclad development standards that ensure that starter homes are legal to build, expect to see some nice, spacious — and expensive — homes built. Local politics almost inevitably lead to zoning that would blunt the affordability impact of land sales. Beyond cost, there are environmental benefits to allowing smaller homes, including both single-family homes on small lots and multifamily housing. Higher-density housing makes more efficient use of urban land, reducing the rate of outward sprawl. Small lots in arid western climates also mean fewer large, irrigated yards sapping water supplies. And while the benefits for American families could be immense, the amount of land required relative to total federal acreage is modest. The homesteading farmer sought 160 acres or more, but today's starter homes can sit on one-tenth of an acre or less. Mountains of evidence show the exclusionary, cost-raising effect of overzealous local zoning. Federal authorities have an opportunity to do more than open land to Americans seeking a home to call their own. They can show our cities and counties what happens when inclusive policies allow for starter homes in addition to houses only the wealthy can afford. Charles Gardner is a research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
21-03-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Building homes on federal land could lower costs — if cities are held in check
The Departments of the Interior and Housing and Urban Development are exploring making some federal land available for homebuilding to alleviate a stubborn housing shortage estimated at over 20 million homes. Their success will depend not only on how quickly and broadly the plan is implemented, but on making sure any newly opened land is not bogged down by the local land use regulations that make housing so scarce and expensive in the first place. The current home shortage is primarily due to excessively restrictive local land-use rules that favor relatively expensive homes on large lots. But particularly in western states, land for homebuilding is limited by federal holdings near fast-growing metropolitan areas like Las Vegas, Phoenix and many others. Western land was opened to large-scale settlement through 1862's Homestead Act, which resulted in the sale of more than 420,000 square miles — around 11 percent of the country — in blocks of up to 160 acres, typically to small farmers. As quality agricultural land grew scarce, claims plummeted and nearly dried up by the 1930s. In 1946, the Bureau of Land Management was formed, reflecting a shift from sales toward maintaining land that had not attracted buyers. In 1976, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act repealed the Homestead Act, signaling an embrace of federal ownership and management, growing environmental concern and other changing currents in public opinion. But in the following years, something else changed: The rapid growth of sunbelt cities made valuable land once thought worthless. But selling federal land had become complex and politically fraught under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and western cities began to chafe against confinement. By the 1990s, the situation had become too pressing to ignore. The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act authorized the Bureau of Land Management to transfer certain land to address a housing shortage in Las Vegas. Its success has been mixed, with around 40 percent of the designated land still unsold. Land that has been sold has been subject to municipal zoning, which typically imposes restrictions such as minimum lot sizes, frontage requirements, setbacks and other mandates that hinder builders from constructing low-cost houses. Today, western states such as Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, California and Oregon have some of the highest home price-to-income ratios in the nation. Hemmed in by federal land and burdened by their own expensive regulations, cities that should be centers of opportunity for a new generation are instead starter-home deserts. New houses are prohibitively expensive for too many buyers. The new initiative promises to revisit the Federal Land Policy and Management Act's assumptions in a comprehensive way that encompasses all affected municipalities. Done right, it could cut through burdensome procedural barriers to selling federal land, relieve cost pressures on western urban markets, allow new cities to grow in appropriate locations and remain attentive to environmental and conservation concerns. But the number of resulting homes that most Americans can comfortably afford will be closely tied to local land use regulations. In Reno, Nevada, I found that new homes on lots smaller than 5,000 square feet appraised at an average of $343,000, while those on 5,000-to-7,000-foot lots were appraised at $461,000. Yet less than 10 percent of the single-family lots in Reno — and zero percent of the area of one major development district — allows homes on less than 5,000 square feet of land. Frontage requirements also played a role in Reno. Each additional 10 mandated feet corresponded with an extra $60,000 in home costs. So, unless the Bureau of Land Management and HUD push back against local policies like these by attaching robust, enforceable conditions to transfers or negotiating ironclad development standards that ensure that starter homes are legal to build, expect to see some nice, spacious — and expensive — homes built. Local politics almost inevitably lead to zoning that would blunt the affordability impact of land sales. Beyond cost, there are environmental benefits to allowing smaller homes, including both single-family homes on small lots and multifamily housing. Higher-density housing makes more efficient use of urban land, reducing the rate of outward sprawl. Small lots in arid western climates also mean fewer large, irrigated yards sapping water supplies. And while the benefits for American families could be immense, the amount of land required relative to total federal acreage is modest. The homesteading farmer sought 160 acres or more, but today's starter homes can sit on one-tenth of an acre or less. Mountains of evidence show the exclusionary, cost-raising effect of overzealous local zoning. Federal authorities have an opportunity to do more than open land to Americans seeking a home to call their own. They can show our cities and counties what happens when inclusive policies allow for starter homes in addition to houses only the wealthy can afford.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
BLM auction brings $16 million for 8 parcels across Las Vegas valley
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — An auction of eight parcels of land totaling 41.85 acres in the Las Vegas valley generated $16.57 million, according to a Wednesday announcement from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The competitive online sale on Tuesday failed to sell two other parcels — 10 acres on the southwest corner of W. La Madre Way at N. Fort Apache Road valued at $4.25 million, and 25 acres along the Northern 215 Beltway valued at $13.05 million. There were no qualifying bids for the two parcels. The eight parcels that sold were: 2.5 acres near S. Rainbow Boulevard and N. Gomer, valued at $1.3 million (sold at $1.52 million to Haikal Exemption Trust) 2.5 acres at the northwest corner of Roban Avenue and S. Las Vegas Boulevard, valued at $1.045 million (sold at $1.715 million to Haikal Exemption Trust) 12.5 acres east of U.S. 95 along Sun Village Park Drive and Kyle Canyon road, valued at $3.7 million (sold at $3.7 million to Elite Excavating) 6.85 acres along Blue Diamond road between S. Grand Canyon Drive and Hualapai Way, valued at $2.52 million (sold at $2.63 million to Hamid (Henry) Moradi) 5 acres near S. Racetrack Road between Burkholder Boulevard and Venice Avenue, valued at $2 million (sold at $2 million to Beazer homes) 5 acres near S. Racetrack Road between Burkholder Boulevard and Venice Avenue, valued at $1.7 million (sold at $1.7 million to Beazer homes) 2.5 acres north of Blue Diamond Road along S. Buffalo Drive and W. Cougar Avenue, valued at $1 million (sold at $1.24 million to Khusrow Roohani) 2.5 acres near the Northern 215 Beltway at the corner of W. Azure and N. Hualapai Way, valued at $2.07 million (sold at $2.07 million to Haikal Exemption Trust) The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act (SNPLMA) allows the BLM to sell public lands within a congressionally designated boundary in the Las Vegas Valley. Proceeds from the sale are split three ways, with 85% going to projects throughout the state such as the development of parks, trails, natural areas, capital improvements on federal lands, acquisition of environmentally sensitive land, hazardous fuels reduction, and landscape restoration projects. Another 5% goes to the state education budget and 10% goes to the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
