A legislator who proposes that Wyoming sell “unnecessary” state-owned land for $1 an acre for affordable housing said his plan for new communities of 10-acre lots might also help wildlife habitat. Rep. Jacob Wasserburger, a Cheyenne Republican, told WyoFile he doesn’t know how much land mi ght qualify for sale under his House Bill 55 “Wyoming homestead opportunity program.” He introduced the 19-page bill Thursday. “Right now I’m still learning where the potential opportunities are,” Wasserburger said. Regarding the acreage that might be available, he said, “I don’t have 100% full certainty how much.” In addition to providing affordable housing for Wyoming residents, building out instead of up could help the state’s wildlife, he said. “We keep talking about affordable housing … but, the only [current] solution is subsidized apartment complexes.” Jacob Wasserburger “I actually think it might help the habitat,” he said, by devoting property to homesteads instead of wind farms and data centers. “That saves the eagles from getting their lungs collapsed,” and he added, saves bats from being struck by turbine blades. The bill targets Wyoming lands designated as “unnecessary for state needs.” It would exclude acreage dedicated to funding schools and institutions and land used for wildlife refuges, parks, landmarks, historic sites and other public areas. Wasserburger admitted to getting “quite a beating from the public” and legislators regarding his bill last week. That continued over the weekend. “This is a terrible idea,” Rep. Mike Yin, a Jackson Democrat, said. Rep. Karlee Provenza, a Laramie Democrat, agreed. “It’s likely this bill does nothing but continues the narrative that we should sell public lands,” she said. “It’s a foot-in-the-door technique that public land owners must see for what it is — a dishonest attempt to try and take our land.” Land lottery The bill would provide $250,000 to the Office of State Lands and Investments to inventory property that would meet Wasserburger’s criteria. Such “homestead clusters” would range from 3,000 to 10,000 acres, containing between 300 to 1,000 lots of 10 acres each, the measure states. The Office of State Lands and Investments already maintains an online map with codes attached to each parcel showing where revenue from each parcel goes, agency officials said in an email Monday. Rep. Jacob Wasserburger dressed patriotically for his first official day as a Wyoming lawmaker .in 2025. (Andrew Graham/WyoFile) “It is unclear exactly how many acres would be eligible for sale if [HB 55] were to pass,” the email reads. “Determining this will take significant detail[ed] study.” The lots would be sold to Wyoming residents — living in the state for a year — through a lottery and would be reserved for “detached” single-family homes. A person could own a maximum of 25 acres. Businesses and corporations would be barred. “We keep talking about affordable housing, affordable housing, affordable housing,” Wasserburger said. But, “the only [current] solution is subsidized apartment complexes.” In such “condensed areas … the crime rate gets to be pretty high,” Wasserburger said. “It’s just not really a healthy way to live, in my opinion.” In a press release announcing the bill, Wasserburger offered this reasoning behind his measure, referring to himself in the third person. “While liberal elites want to import the third world and pack everyone into dense high-crime urban areas owned by Wall Street, Wasserburger’s landmark legislation delivers the opposite: families living on affordable acres of land away from big cities,” the release reads. “Radical leftists opened America to the third world which not only drove up housing prices for American families, but also led America into a historic housing deficit.” Tapping the housing crisis to justify opening publicly owned lands to development is drawing sharp opposition. “Folks are using the crisis around affordability, the crisis around housing, the crisis around health care, the crisis of groceries, to justify things like tariffs that are illegal, unconstitutional,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat, said at a meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee in December. Those people are “justifying opening your public lands and resources … then trying to convince the American people that we’re doing this to help you with the everyday costs that are affecting you. “It’s just complete f***ing bullshit,” she said. Out, not up Rather than having people living in a “built up” vertical environment, “we could have people spread out across land,” Wasserburger said. “People would have the opportunity of the American dream.” There’s one 640-acre section north of Niobrara County’s Manville, population 95, that could qualify, he said. The state owns about 3.9 million acres, but only about 16,000 might be unencumbered by leases or other uses and potentially qualify under Waserburger’s criteria, Sen. Mike Gierau, a Jackson Democrat, said. Most of the acreage is leased for grazing, oil and gas development or used for state functions like government, hospitals, prisons, state parks or the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Gierau was skeptical the bill could work.  “There may be 5 acres here, 20 acres there,” he said. Other institutions and agencies like the University of Wyoming, Department of Transportation, Department of Health and military also own or administer state property, Provenza said. “This bill is not solving a problem, but certainly is creating many more,” she said. The post A Wyoming lawmaker wants to sell state land at $1 per acre for affordable housing appeared first on WyoFile . ...read more read less