If a federal lands bill doesn’t specify affordable housing, it won’t create any, Titus says

“If you just leave it to developers they will just develop high-end housing,” Nevada Demoratic Rep. Dina Titus said while discussing the oft-touted claim that selling federal lands will lead to affordable housing. (Photo: Michael Lyle/Nevada Current)

Any federal proposal to sell public lands should include guardrails to ensure affordable housing is built, have strict water limits on construction, and rely on more public input, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus said.

Speaking Tuesday night at a roundtable featuring representatives from environmental groups and the transportation and home building industries, Titus said previous input on legislation has been “behind closed doors, with just a few stakeholders involved.”

Legislation to sell off public lands in the name of building more affordable housing has been embraced repeatedly in the last several years, by both Democrats and Republicans. 

U.S. Rep Mark Amodei unsuccessfully attempted to add a provision in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill to sell off public land.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and U.S. Rep. Susie Lee have sponsored various iterations of a public lands bill during their time in office. In March, they reintroduced the Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, commonly referred to as the Clark County Lands Bill.

Titus doesn’t expect the bill to go anywhere in the Republican-controlled Senate, saying “I don’t know if they want to do Democrats any favors.”

Titus said she is opposed to the bill but added that there has to be more than criticism to proposals: “We’ve got to talk about what we can offer as an alternative.”

Though there have been calls to develop housing that’s affordable for a spectrum of income levels, some housing advocates have worried there isn’t enough focus on the lowest income workers, who earn 30% or less of area median income.  

When asked how area median income should factor into guardrails and discussion on what affordable housing could be built, Titus said she “didn’t have a figure.”

“I would defer to the experts on what they say is affordable but it’s a sliding scale,” she said. “What a teacher can afford is not what a Culinary Union member can afford. That has to be a consideration because if you just leave it to developers they will just develop high-end housing.”

Proposals to open up more federal lands come in spite of strong criticism. Conservation groups warn it could lead to water scarcity and have negative climate impacts. Housing policy experts push for infill development rather than urban sprawl. 

Despite concerns, local and state officials, including Gov. Joe Lombardo, have focused on the need to sell public lands as a solution to the housing crisis. 

During the 2025 Legislative Session, Titus admonished efforts led by Democrats to approve a resolution asking the federal government to release federal lands, arguing at the time proposals don’t “do anything about affordable housing.”

Speaking Tuesday, Titus said the housing crisis, which is not confined to Nevada, goes beyond federal land. 

“You can’t just say, ‘well, maybe you should build affordable housing’ and not put some guardrails on that,” she said. 

The conversation rarely addresses other complications to building housing, “whether it’s a supply chain problem that’s still left over from Covid, whether it’s tariffs on wood and iron and steel,” she said.

A decline in construction workforce, partly due to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts, is also exacerbating the housing crisis.  

Titus pointed to the need to look at infill development, references reports that show Southern Nevada has underutilized land. 

The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada released an analysis in February that identified 78,285 acres as “vacant or underutilized land.”

Southern Nevada Home Builders Association CEO Tina Frias said “there’s a lot of components to take into consideration in terms of the developability of that plan.”

Instead, she pointed to a study by Applied Analysis, which was done in coordination with the Home Builders, that warned the valley was running out of land that could be developed.

Titus said some opposed to infill development argue that building more densely could lead to congestion issues, a sentiment she said she disagreed with. 

Andrew Kjellman, a planning director at RTC also thought it was “a false choice.”

“Traffic impacts is what everyone’s going to be tracking with any proposal for increased density, but it does need to be paired with a street grid that is walkable, bikeable and easy to take transit on,” he said.

Unlike similar nearby metropolitan areas, including Phoenix and Denver, Kjellman said Nevada doesn’t invest nearly as much as it should in public transportation.

While there are still ongoing discussions on federal proposals to open up land, new projects, including the proposed new airport and the Brightline West high speed rail, could lead to more development around those projects.

The Federal Aviation Administration and Bureau of Land Management in August held one of their first public meetings on the proposed Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport on a dry lakebed near the Nevada-California border.

The airport would be one of the largest in the nation by land area, sprawling across 23,000 acres of public land in the Ivanpah Valley north of Primm and has prompted concerns from environmental groups. 

Titus asked Frias if the land near the airport would be used to produce commercial or residential development. 

“I think it’s far too early to predict what living demand is going to be,” Frias responded.

In addition to the RTC and Home Builders, the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter Nevada Environmental Justice Coalition and Conservation Lands Foundation participated in the roundtable.

The BLM was also asked to participate, according to Titus.

“They told us they had to get permission, and they never got back to us,” she said.