Just east of the St. George city limits, there’s a place where the sprawl ends. Turning a corner past large, pristine homes with manicured lawns, the black asphalt gives way to red desert.
Given southwest Utah’s rapid growth, it would seem like this neighborhood could easily continue on. However, if you take one more step past the end of the sidewalk, you enter open scrubland controlled by the Bureau of Land Management.
That might not always be the case, though. That’s because the idea of converting public land into housing is having a moment.
U.S. Rep. John Curtis of Utah’s 3rd Congressional District introduced a bill in February to create an avenue for the federal government to sell land to state or local governments to build homes. It’s a companion bill to one that U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah reintroduced in 2023.
The Biden administration announced its own set of actions to open federal land to housing development this summer, including the BLM’s proposed sale of 20 acres near Las Vegas. The White House statement calls on all federal agencies to take stock of “surplus” land to see which parcels might help with housing shortages.
Even locally in southwest Utah, the mayor of Ivins has advocated for developing a piece of nearby state land into affordable housing.
Whichever proposal might end up becoming a reality, Southern Utah Home Builders Association’s Government Affairs Director Stacy Young said the push to include public land in future development seems to be gaining momentum.
Read the full story at kuer.org • This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.
