The Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies at UNLV delivered a report to the Clark County Growth Task Force Tuesday, recommending the establishment of a community land trust that could buy federal land at a discount and then lease that land to middle-class folks who otherwise couldn't "afford" a home.

The report defines "affordable housing" by assuming that a household earning 80 percent or less of the area's median income should be able to buy a house and still spend less than 30 percent of its family income for housing and utilities, combined. Beyond that, housing may be "affordable" but still not "attainable" if families earning up to 120 percent of the regional median can't get into a home for less than 30 percent of their income, according to the study.

Whoo-hah! How long is that line going to be?

"People should not have to choose between paying for food and medicine and paying their rent and utilities," the report's authors assert.

But you know what? They do. People do have to make choices. Young twenty-somethings just starting out may not be able to afford that nice $300,000 house in the suburbs. They may have to work hard and make choices, getting married if they want kids and eating macaroni and living in an apartment while they save up their nest eggs. Is this something government should be trying to "fix," perverting these incentives for wise economic behavior by imposing hidden taxes on those who did work and save to get ahead, to subsidize those who don't want to bother?

In fact, while the Lied Institute argues not enough people are becoming homeowners, some would argue current mortgage policies -- which can encourage people to buy homes with as little as 3 percent down -- may be putting too many people into homes they won't be able to afford, should the economy take a downturn and leave them owing more than their property's resale value.

Edward Stringham and Benjamin Powell, economics professors at San Jose State University, have made a thorough study of "affordable housing" mandates in California. They found such interventions do nothing to reduce construction or land acquisition costs, but merely represent a new form of cost-shifting. In the San Francisco Bay area the "effective tax on each market rate home was over $44,000," the professors found. "New home construction fell an average of 31 percent in the year after an affordable housing requirement was adopted."

And professor Stringham, in a speech at the annual Freedom Summit in Phoenix Nov. 12, further warned that these "affordable housing" schemes aren't even a good bargain for the "beneficiaries." While those who save and struggle to buy their own homes can profit from the homes' subsequent appreciation in value, the "affordable housing" programs typically require that the house can never be resold except to another "qualified recipient," at or near the original, discounted price -- eliminating the biggest "up side" of home ownership -- the professor reported.

(In the "trust fund" version of the plan being peddled here, the catch is that "the investment stays there in perpetuity," according to County Manager of Community Resources Doug Bell -- the home "owner" doesn't own and therefore can never sell or gain from the market appreciation of the land.)

Dubbing such a scheme a "community" land trust makes it sound all warm and cozy. But "community" here is a euphemism for more government welfare -- an approach so unattractive that even the sponsors promise to sprinkle their subsidized properties hither and yon amidst larger developments so as to make them less noticeable, while admitting the federal land sale discount would be only "one of several subsidies required" to make the plan work.

Yes, cheaper homes would be nice. For starters, the county might want to ask developers whether any costs could be trimmed by simplifying their zoning and building inspection procedures, eliminating any that can't actually be shown to improve resident health and safety.