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U.S. Forest Service loses ability to lease land for affordable housing after Congress fails to renew measure in government funding bill

At least one workforce housing project in Steamboat will be stalled until federal lawmakers act

News News |

Robert Tann
  

Jason Peasley, executive director of the Yampa Valley Housing Authority, speaks to a crowd in Steamboat on Oct. 6, 2022. The housing authority is pursuing a lease agreement with U.S. Forest Service officials to build up to 84 rental apartments on an 8-acre parcel of public land in the Steamboat area.
John F. Russell/Steamboat Pilot & Today

A key tool for building affordable housing in Colorado’s mountain resort communities will be put on ice after Congress failed to renew the measure ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline. 

Under the 2018 Farm Bill — a legislative package that funds and supports food, agricultural and rural development programs — the U.S. Forest Service was given the authority for the first time ever to lease certain land to local governments for the purpose of building affordable housing. 

The measure applies only to administrative sites that typically already have some form of housing or storage infrastructure in place. The provision, however, is set to expire at the end of September along with most of the Farm Bill, which must be renewed on a five-year basis. 

Democrats and Republicans in Congress for months have been engulfed in a budget fight over not just the Farm Bill but government spending as a whole. An 11th-hour vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday evening produced a stop-gap bill that will keep the government funded through Dec. 20, but it left out a number of Farm Bill programs — including the leasing provision. 

The House voted 341-82 in favor of the funding bill, with Democrats carrying the majority of the votes while hardline Republicans opposed the measure. With Congress now in a weekslong recess, the Farm Bill is poised to lapse. 


“I am deeply disappointed that the (funding) bill did not include an extension for critical Forest Service leasing provisions that help meet the needs of communities surrounded by federal lands by increasing much-needed access to affordable housing,” Rep. Joe Neguse said in a statement to the Vail Daily.

Neguse continued, “I am committed to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to re-implement these tools and strengthen the mutually beneficial partnership between USFS and America’s rural and mountain communities.”

The leasing provision has garnered interest from rural resort areas in and outside of Colorado, but only one community in the U.S. so far has successfully used the tool to initiate housing development. 

Summit County government officials last fall entered a lease agreement with the White River National Forest to secure an 11-acre parcel of public land near the town of Dillon. There, officials plan to build 162 income-based rental units.

A rendering shows what a proposed 162-unit workforce housing complex set to be built near the town of Dillon could look like. The project, led by Summit County officials, represents the first time in the U.S. that a National Forest has leased land to a local government for the purposes of building workforce housing, a provision that was unlocked for Forest Service officials under the 2018 Farm Bill.
Summit County government/courtesy illustration

While the expiration of the leasing provision will not affect that project since the county already signed the lease, it will stall at least one other similar initiative in Steamboat Springs. 

The Yampa Valley Housing Authority is currently pursuing plans to build up to 84 apartments on a vacant 8-acre Forest Service site. The units would be reserved for some local Forest Service employees as well as area residents earning between 50% and 140% of the area’s median income.

Despite pushing to have a lease for the property signed before the end of the month, the housing authority’s executive director, Jason Peasley, said that won’t be the case, putting the Routt County project on hold indefinitely. 

“We were always aware of this as a potential outcome,” Peasley said. “It will be a delay of some unknown period of time. We hope it’s not a significant delay, and we also have no control over that.”

Still, he said officials will be able to continue hammering out the details of the lease and complete the appraisal process in the interim. He’s hopeful Congress will act in some way to renew the leasing provision. 

He called the lease-signing “an important threshold” for the project that will allow it to advance to critical stages like community outreach, planning and zoning approval and construction. 

“We’re all still committed to the project and moving the parts forward that we can,” Peasley said. “It’s in Congress’ hands … but I feel fairly optimistic that we’ll get to that end point.”

Other Colorado communities, including Eagle and Pitkin counties, have explored the idea of leasing Forest Service land for housing projects but have not advanced to the stage of signing a lease. Now, officials won’t be able to do so unless that authority is renewed. 

“Without the USFS leasing authority, rural resort communities will have one less tool in the tool box as we work towards affordable housing solutions,” said Eagle County resiliency director Tory Franks, in an email. “More importantly, I think, is the loss of the USFS as a real partner in developing housing solutions.”

Congress still has multiple paths to restoring the leasing provision. 

One is for lawmakers to renew it as part of a new Farm Bill, seen as a piece of must-pass legislation, before the end of the year. Congress is not set to reconvene until after the Nov. 5 election and any movement on a new Farm Bill won’t happen until after then. 

Neguse has also introduced versions of the leasing provision in the House. One is a stand-alone bill, the Forest Service Flexible Housing Partnerships Act, while the other is part of a broader public lands package known as the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act. 

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse fields questions from Summit County constituents during a town hall at the Summit County Community and Senior Center on April 24, 2024. “After running out the clock on government funding, House Republicans finally came to the table this week to work with us on a bipartisan path forward to pass a stop-gap continuing resolution that avoids a disastrous government shutdown,” Neguse said in a recent statement
Robert Tann/Summit Daily News

The partnerships act, while supported in Congress’ upper chamber by Republican and Democratic senators, has yet to receive a floor vote in the House. The EXPLORE Act passed the House earlier this year but has not advanced in the Senate where members have been less enthusiastic to pass public lands initiatives. While the leasing tool has bipartisan endorsement, its ties to other, broader legislation like EXPLORE and the Farm Bill could make it more difficult to pass. 

The latter has been the subject of extreme partisan fighting, with Democrats and Republicans at odds over spending levels for a host of programs including farmer subsidies, conservation efforts and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formally known as food stamps. 

In a previous statement, Sen. Michael Bennet stated he wanted to protect conservation and forest resource programs as well as SNAP funding from cuts, adding, “The funding for the Farm Bill is something we’re going to have to hammer out over the next few months.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert said in a statement last month she is “proud to be a cosponsor of the Forest Service Flexible Housing Partnerships Act that would allow the Forest Service to continue lease land for workforce housing and find ways to drive down the cost of living.”

Boebert, who was one of the 82 House Republicans to vote against this week’s government funding bill, stated when there is final legislation for a new Farm Bill, “I’ll carefully review and make the best decision for all of my constituents.”