Montana News
Proposal would allow state trust lands to be sold for real estate development
With Montana News, I'm Corinn Cade Scarny. Public land managers want to make it easier to develop and sell state trust lands. They say it will help address housing shortages, but lawmakers are divided on supporting the idea. Montana Public Radio's Asan Amistore sat down with reporter LSU Lynn to discuss this proposed legislation and how it fits into national trends of public land use. So, several agencies recently gave lawmakers proposals for bills they'd like to see prioritized in the 2025 session. Ellis, the Environmental Quality Council, though, was divided on one about state public land. Why was that? This proposal would create a new option for what the state does with trust lands. These are lands owned by the state that make up about 5% of land in Montana. As it now stands, the state can sell undeveloped trust land, or lease it for things like agricultural use or development. Either option generates revenue for the state, which is then used to fund public schools. Now the agency that's responsible for those lands wants to expand how they can be used. The Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, or DNRC, is putting these ideas forward. The agency wants to authorize this new option where they would lease state trust lands to a developer who could build residential or commercial buildings. Then, once it's been developed, the land can be sold with those structures that the developer had built. Right, so it sounds like a step beyond what the agency has normally done in years past. Why is DNRC saying this is needed? There's a little bit of a backstory here, so we're going to turn back to the 2023 session. In that session, lawmakers passed a massive bill trying to address the issue of housing affordability and availability in the state. And in that bill, they directed DNRC to evaluate the potential for building affordable workforce housing on these state lands that are in close proximity to cities or towns. We now know that DNRC has done those evaluations for a couple of different areas, Billings, Calispell, Whitefish, Missoula, and the Gallatin Valley. And there are maps of these areas that identify where the agency thinks development on state trust lands could happen. And you can see those maps on our website with this story. This new proposal goes one step further. When presenting it to that interim committee a few weeks ago, DNRC's Director Amanda Castor told committee members that these evaluations have prompted increased interest from developers and the executive branch. So this concept would allow us to offer a new type of commercial development lease on trust lands that would allow us to facilitate residential development and capture increased property values when lots are sold. DNRC spokesperson Moira Davin also told me that the agency sees this proposal as beneficial for residential properties, because it would reduce the upfront costs for housing development and generate more income for the state than if they were just selling raw land. So that's the argument from DNRC in favor of this new proposal. What did members of the Environmental Quality Council have to say about it? Well, several Democratic lawmakers like Missoula Representative Jonathan Carlin voiced concerns over how the bill proposal goes a lot broader than that 2023 law, and it seems to be moving away from specific language for developing affordable housing. I guess I do have some concerns when it comes to potential uses of state lands and this commercial residential realm. You know, what sorts of kind of sideboards are going to be in place, what sorts of public process? Some lawmakers also said that the language of the proposal was vague, and this policy really gets at views about how to manage state public lands and what role they should or shouldn't play in the fix for affordable housing in Montana. You know, Alice, this really has to be thinking about proposals that we've heard about in other states and even at the federal level recently. I know on the campaign trail, former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have both floated the idea of using federal land to develop housing. Is this Montana proposal part of a broader trend? That's a great question, Austin, and it is. Director Castor told lawmakers that this proposal that we're floating here in Montana is modeled after something being done in Utah, and like you mentioned, there's been interest in taking federal public lands, especially in western states where we have so much open land, and using them to build housing. And this is getting bipartisan traction. Just this summer, we saw the Biden administration authorize the sale of federal public lands in Nevada to build affordable housing near Las Vegas. Well, we are still a few months out from the 2025 legislative session here in Montana and about a month from elections. What's next for this, Alice? While the Committee of Lawmakers and Public Representatives didn't endorse this proposed bill draft, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's dead. Any lawmaker could pick it up once they're elected next month, and it can still be up for debate early next year when lawmakers convene. Well, we'll add it to the list of things to watch in January 2025. Alice, thanks for your reporting. Thanks, Austin. This is Montana Public Radio News.