LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — At a campaign event in Las Vegas, Channel 13 anchor Joe Moeller prompted former President Donald Trump to address a pressing issue for Southern Nevadans.
Trump took questions from reporters after his campaign speech at Il Toro E La Capra in the southwest valley. Moeller asked him, if he were elected, how he would address the shrinking availability of developable land in Southern Nevada.
Joe Moeller: What are your policies on releasing more federal land for building houses? How would you enact that here in Southern Nevada? Because that is a huge issue...and it will be in the coming years.
Donald Trump: Well, we want to have land so we can have housing built in certain areas; like this area, they don't have the housing. And we have so much land and we want to put it to use, so we're going to have land released and on that land we're going to build housing. We're going to have housing built, and it will be great for Nevada, and it will be great for other areas.
Watch: Donald Trump addresses shrinking availability of land in Southern Nevada:
Why talk about this now?
Just a day before Trump's event, local business leaders were presented with a stark reality at the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance's annual Perspective forum.
“We have plus or minus eight years of developmental land left" in the Las Vegas valley, Applied Analysis principal Jeremy Aguero told the gathering.
WATCH: Local expects break down the housing crisis in our community:
On top of that, Nevada's population is growing. The state has been in the top five for population growth nationally for the past five years. In a recent study, UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research projected Clark County's population would reach nearly 3 million people by 2040.
Since the Bureau of Land Management owns roughly 67% of land in the Silver State, local leaders have put pressure on the federal government to release some of that land for development.
“If there is demand to put that land into productive use, we ought to put it either into the hands of local governments that can put that to public use or into the private sector that’s going to develop that property," Aguero said on Thursday.
Trump's response to Moeller's question is in line with policy asks from Gov. Joe Lombardo, who's urged the Biden administration to release more federal land for development.
During a visit to Las Vegas on July 16, President Joe Biden announced executive action directing the BLM to assess its surplus land, with the goal of allocating some of it for affordable housing development.
As of that date, the Biden administration said the agency was considering local governments' interest in 562.5 acres of land, which the White House says could support up to 15,000 homes.
