Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) announced that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD) have made updates the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act’s (SNPLMA) Affordable Housing Guidance to make it easier to build affordable housing units on federal land across Nevada.
SNPLMA contains provisions allowing for the sale of public land in Clark County to build affordable housing, but a burdensome process has been keeping developers from being able to access the land they needed to begin construction. Therefore, the BLM and HUD updated SNPLMA’s “Nevada Guidance” to make a better, more streamlined process.
The new guidelines will:
- Streamlines the conveyance of federal lands for affordable housing development in Nevada;
- Formalizes the process for HUD and BLM to make land throughout Nevada available at a discount for rental or for-sale homes serving families with incomes below 80% of Area Median Income;
- Establishes a streamlined process to assess affordable housing proposals in the state and calls for a review the process after ten years.
“Nevada is facing an affordable housing crisis and we need to be doing more to ensure we can build more homes for working families,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “For too long developing affordable housing on public lands in Nevada has been bogged down by an inefficient process, and I pushed for these vital improvements that will make it easier to build more homes for Nevada’s working families.”
