By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX — Republican lawmakers grilled the head of the Land Department Tuesday about why her agency is leasing state-owned land for solar development when they believe it should be sold off for needed residential development.
Rep. David Gowan said it makes no financial sense to designate some of the nearly 9.2 million acres of state land as best suited for solar farms when there is a pressing need for available land for housing in many areas of the state. Worse yet, the Sierra Vista Republican said, is these solar leases tie up the land for 30 years.
Exhibit No. 1 for him is a plan for a solar project planned on state land on the edge of Sierra Vista, an area of the state where he said residential growth has been capped.
"You should have heard the thoughts from the local community,'' Gowan told Robyn Sahid, the state land commissioner, who was called to testify Tuesday before the Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Committee on State Land Oversight. More to the point, he said the parcel should have been made available for outright sale for commercial use, including residential development.
"We're going to take a plot of land that's perfect for housing right next to our city, out for 30 years,'' Gowan said. "It's frustrating to my community.''
But Sahid found herself defending not just that project but similar decisions by her agency to lease parcels for solar and wind versus making them available for sale.
She told lawmakers that sometimes these decisions are made because there isn't the infrastructure available suitable for a subdivision. Gowan sniffed at that explanation.
"I'm assuming we could have infrastructure there in 30 years,'' he said.
The dispute over that parcel in Sierra Vista is just a piece of the larger discussion going on about what is the best use of the 9.2 million acres of state land, with the Land Department having about 150 pending applications from others who also want similar solar leases.
Data from the Land Department, released Tuesday by the committee, said the agency auctioned off 22 times more trust land for solar in the last fiscal year as it did for residential.
That report says seven parcels totaling 6,704 acres, generated about $8,100 an acre for a total of $52.6 million. By contrast, there were two auctions for residential land totaling just 307 acres. But they generated an average of $356,646 an acre netting more than $181 million for the land trust.
It has become a statewide debate, especially after Gov. Katie Hobbs in 2025 ordered the Land Department to expedite energy projects on state lands. One of the programs that came out of it was the agency was told to prepare a map of where on its extensive holdings it makes the most sense for large-scale solar projects.
Earlier this year, Rep. Ralph Heap, R-Mesa, introduced legislation to kill the solar maps and instead direct the agency to prepare similar maps, this time for residential and mining. He pushed the issue through the House but it stalled in the Senate.
But the dispute remains, with Republican gubernatorial hopeful Andy Biggs vowing to repeal Hobbs' executive order if he is elected in November.
And there's another, larger question: Why Arizona, which was given 10 million acres of federal land when it became a state in 1912, still is hanging on to those 9.2 million acres.
On one hand, the state does make money from its leases which benefits K-12 education.
But the Common Sense Institute reports that most of that — about 8.3 million acres — is in the form of grazing leases, often, but not always, in rural areas. And CSI says the $3 million the Land Department takes in each year from those leases amounts to just 36 cents an acre.
That has raised questions about whether the state should be more aggressive in selling off land. And CSI claims that selling off the remaining lands in the next decade would generate $18.5 billion in revenue that could be put into the land trust account as well as support the development of a million new housing units over 20 years.
It also has become an issue in the race for state treasurer, with Republican Elijah Norton promoting the faster sale of state lands near metropolitan areas.
"We are certainly taking seriously our job to get land to auction for the benefit of the trust as quickly as possible,'' Sahid told the committee on Tuesday. But she said it's not that simple.
It starts, Sahid said, with the local governments.
"They have the ultimate say,'' she said. "If there are local zoning regulations, whatever it may be, in place, we abide by those. Our applicants have to abide by those.''
But there also is the question of whether solar leases make sense — and not just in terms of delaying any residential development that could occur there for 30 years.
Gowan said that the 30-year lease on the 1,061 acre Sierra Vista property for $6.9 million — it was the only bidder — comes out to just $217 an acre per year. Gowan suggested that an outright sale could bring more money.
Sahid said the deal actually is worth more, what with royalties on the electricity produced generating a minimum of $8.6 million.
And there's something else.
She said lease revenues, including the royalties, are distributed directly — and immediately — to K-12 schools. By contrast, when state lands are sold, the amount goes into the trust, with schools getting a percentage off those earnings.
Gowan said he remains unconvinced that locking up the land for 30 years makes sense.
"We're going to need homes down there,'' he said.
"That solar development is right in the heart of a region of the growth pattern of Sierra Vista that would be ideal for housing,'' Gowan said. "I don't know how the Land Department hasn't seen that.''
Sahid, however, said she believes the return on that specific parcel would have been less had it been sold outright — assuming anyone actually would have bid to buy it. Leasing, she said, is a better option.
And she said there are other considerations about lease versus sale.
"The state Land Department retains that asset, hopefully growing in appreciation as the surrounding area continues to grow and develop which I think is what we all want to see in those areas,'' Sahid said. In the interim, she said, the state is getting income while it waits for a better time to sell in 30 years when the land should be worth more.
That argument didn't impress Rep. Gail Griffin. She said a sale would immediately put the proceeds into the trust funds that are invested, with K-12 schools as the main beneficiary of those earnings.
Nor does Griffin believe that a solar farm will make the area more valuable in the long run.
"Living next to a solar farm is not somebody's ideal situation,'' she said.
That question of who makes a good neighbor isn't just about solar.
Lawmakers last year debated a measure to say that wind turbines could not be within six miles of anyone else's property without that person's consent. And they would have had to be 12 miles from any property zoned for residential development.
The bill failed to get the necessary votes.
Phoenix Rep. Sarah Liguori, one of two Democrats on the eight-member committee, said she doesn't share the same concerns about state lands becoming a home for renewable energy.
"I personally am glad to hear that there's a lot of wind and solar interest in the state,'' she said. "I think it's a long-time coming.''
And Liguori said this shouldn't be seen as replacing other sources. Consider, she said, Texas.
"They're the largest producer of oil and gas in the country,'' Liguori said.
"They're also the largest producer of wind and solar in the country,'' she continued. "And we have as much, if not more, days of solar here.''
