Don’t blame public lands for the housing crisis

By Sen. Ali Rabe, D-Boise
Reader Contributor

Lately, some politicians and pundits — including The Wall Street Journal — have floated a quick fix to the housing crisis sweeping much of the country. Their solution is to sell off public lands to make way for new development. You’ll hear this argument in Western states like Idaho, Utah and Montana, but that is like selling your empty fridge because the grocery store is closed. It misses the real problem. 

High housing costs aren’t caused by protected landscapes. They stem from outdated zoning rules and attitudes that block new homes from being built in places where people already live and work. Public land is not the obstacle. Bad policy is. 

There is no doubt that housing costs in Idaho are high, with the state now considered the second least affordable market in the country. Essential workers, such as teachers, child care providers and grocery clerks, struggle to find homes they can afford. 

It is not an oversimplification to state that a shortage of homes causes these high housing costs. There are not enough homes to rent or buy that meet people’s needs and budgets. When demand outpaces supply, prices increase. This is a fundamental principle of supply and demand.

Selling off remote public lands won’t change that. It only pushes development farther from where people work. That leads to more traffic, higher costs for taxpayers, and fewer opportunities for families to live near jobs and schools. Sprawl stretches emergency services, burdens water systems and eats away at the quality of life that communities value.

The real fix is to build more homes closer to where people already are. That means updating local rules to allow more types of housing. This has been demonstrated in many cities and states that have built their way out of the problem by creating more homes of all types and sizes.

Communities can allow smaller homes on smaller lots. They can let people convert garages or basements into separate units. They can legalize multi-family housing and duplexes in areas previously limited to single-family homes or commercial use.

I challenge you to look around your town and notice all of the potential and wasted land that could be used for homes. There are empty lots, oversized yards and underused land that could support more homes. The space is there. The will to act is what’s missing.

And let’s not lose sight of what public lands give us. They provide our communities with recreation, wildlife habitat, fresh air, clean water and cultural value. They support the economy and enhance all of our lives. Suggesting we sell them makes them a scapegoat and distracts from the real work of solving the housing supply problem.

Instead of selling land, we should focus on what works. We can build more duplexes, fourplexes, townhomes and accessory dwelling units, like basement or garage apartments. We can reduce rules that create unnecessary and overly bureaucratic restrictions for developers. We can prioritize building near existing infrastructure.

We don’t need to sacrifice what makes Idaho special to make it more affordable. Public land sales will not solve the housing crisis, but improving our housing policies will. We need to make room for more homes of all shapes and sizes in the spaces we already inhabit, allowing the people who work in our communities to live in them, too. 

And it will be worth it, because in the end, we’ll still have what makes our communities worth living in, including access to nature.

Ali Rabe is a Democratic legislator serving Boise’s District 16 in the Idaho Senate on the Transportation and Local Government and Taxation committees. She works as executive director of Jesse Tree, a nonprofit focused on preventing eviction and homelessness in the Treasure Valley.