Lombardo urges Biden to cut red tape on housing projects

Gov. Joe Lombardo again called on President Joe Biden to streamline the process for releasing federal land to make way for more housing in a letter sent Tuesday.

Lombardo’s letter, which follows the president’s visit to Las Vegas last week, reiterates a letter the governor sent Biden in March that called on the president to “cut bureaucratic barriers” he says is blocking the state’s ability to build necessary housing.

“Housing developers throughout the state are poised to add to Nevada’s housing inventory, but we need a streamlined approach to the disposal of federal lands so they can get to work,” Lombardo wrote in Tuesday’s letter.

More than 80 percent of Nevada’s land is owned by the federal government, which limits how much land is available for development. The sometimes yearslong process to release federal land to states or local jurisdictions “is unworkable,” Lombardo said.

Lombardo’s letter also references an upcoming Bureau of Land Management sale of 20 acres of public land to Clark County at below-market value, which is expected to enable the development of nearly 150 affordable homes.

The sale, which is being held in accordance with the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, is “a step in the right direction,” Lombardo said, but he warned that it isn’t a statewide solution to address the state’s housing crisis.

A section of the 1998 law provides below-market-value housing development incentives only to affordable housing projects — a move some housing stakeholders say is too restrictive — and does not alleviate costs or “bureaucratic hurdles” that delay housing development, Lombardo wrote.

The governor also urged the president to direct the U.S. Department of Interior to complete an updated Resource Management Plan for the state.

Attached to Lombardo’s memo were letters from several local economic development and local municipality groups, including the Nevada Association of Counties, the Nevada League of Cities and the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, which echoed Lombardo’s concerns about the availability of developable land.

The letter follows a flurry of affordable housing-related moves by the Biden administration, which were announced ahead of the president’s speech July 16 at the NAACP’s 115th National Convention.

The administration shared that the BLM would announce a below-market sale of 18 acres of land to the city of Henderson and said it was considering an additional 562.5 acres in Southern Nevada.

Biden announced during his Las Vegas visit that his administration had awarded a $50 million federal grant to the Southern Nevada Housing Authority and the city of Las Vegas for the restoration of over 230 existing units and the construction of 400 new housing units.

The president also called on Congress to pass a proposal that would require corporate landlords to cap rent increases on existing units at 5 percent or risk losing federal tax breaks as part of a flurry of housing-related announcements last week.

But the plan was met with skepticism by Lombardo, who raised concerns about the proposal in a statement released after Biden spoke at the NAACP conference.

Contact Taylor R. Avery at TAvery@reviewjournal.com. Follow @travery98 on X.