Arizona lawmaker again pushes major changes to housing rules after veto

It would strip larger Arizona cities and towns of the right to set standards for single-family home lots and building sizes, and would bar them from setting design standards or requiring features such as fencing or garages.

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed the measure last year after massive pressure from cities and towns.

But Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci’s effort to address Arizona’s housing crisis by spurring construction of smaller and cheaper “starter homes’’ has only one tweak from last year’s version: It excludes areas around military airports, which Hobbs pointed to as a major issue in her veto letter.

Hobbs cited larger concerns as well, saying last year’s measure was filled with “unexplored, unintended consequences that are of great concern’’ because they placed major limits on what could be required for new housing.

Biasiucci’s proposal, set for discussion Tuesday by the House Commerce Committee, is one of many expected to be debated this legislative session as the state’s housing crisis continues unabated.

Four major housing bills were adopted last year, including ones allowing backyard casitas in many areas, the redevelopment of commercial buildings into apartments, and a requirement for large cities to allow duplexes and triplexes in central parts of larger cities now zoned for single-family homes.

Those are just the start of what’s needed, according to backers of a statewide housing overhaul. At a news conference two weeks ago at the Capitol, Democratic and Republican lawmakers gathered to announce they would band together to craft bills to address the problem.

“Affordable housing is not a right,’’ said Rep. Walt Blackman, R-Snowflake. However, it’s a responsibility as legislators that we provide our next generation with the opportunity to have the type of opportunity that we had, the opportunity that I had, to buy an affordable home. This is not a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent issue.’’

Sen. Analise Ortiz, D-Phoenix, said the new housing caucus will have regular lunchtime meetings to discuss the types of new laws needed with anyone who wants to attend — Hobbs included.

“There are so many different layers to this crisis and it’s not just one bill,’’ Ortiz said. “Not one bill is ever going to be the magic bullet for this crisis. It’s going to be a lot of pieces of legislation working together, and that’s what our bipartisan housing caucus is going to be focused on.’’

The state’s shortage of housing can be tied to the mortgage and foreclosure crisis that began in 2007 and that saw metro Phoenix with the highest rate of foreclosures in the nation. That led builders to cut the number of homes they were constructing for many years, even as Arizona’s population continued to increase.

The rise of the short-term rental industry has also been a major factor, with homes that were formally rented out on long-term leases being converted to short-term rentals marketed on Airbnb and Vrbo websites.

Soaring home prices in the past five years have kept pressure on regular rentals, with those prices rising as well.

But in an interview with Capitol Media Services, Biasiucci said he’s also convinced Arizona’s housing crisis needs a reset of rules to prompt the development of smaller, cheaper homes that are affordable. That means requiring cities and towns to approve new developments that are vastly different than the standard tract homes developed over decades, by allowing builders to construct cheaper homes, he said.

His “starter homes’’ proposal sets minimum lot sizes at just 1,500 feet for any development covering 5 acres or more and bars cities from requiring that homes be set further than 10 feet from the front and 5 feet from the sides of the home. Cities could not require tile roofs or block walls or any other design element such as paint colors.

“If you remove those kind of silly requirements that belong maybe in an HOA, not in a city, that’s going to keep the cost down,’’ the Lake Havasu City lawmaker said. “Because when you’re requiring a tile roof or you’re requiring a brick wall, or you’re requiring certain paints, or you’re requiring an enclosed garage, I think this is the city overstepping their authority.’’

He said property owners should be making those decisions, not cities and towns. But he expects opposition from the League of Arizona Cities and Towns again this year.

“I know that there’s only going to be pushback from the league and in these cities and towns because they want to have that control,’’ he said. “But we just feel like it’s gone to a point where it’s not even making it affordable anymore for people to buy a starter home.’’

It was the league, which represents Arizona’s 91 municipalities, that led the charge against the major overhaul of zoning regulations last year.

As a compromise, the measure applied only to cities with populations over 70,000, cutting out all but the 19 largest cities. Even at that, it barely passed the Senate last year and had only two votes to spare in the House, although both votes were bipartisan.

Hobbs’ veto killed the plan.

League Executive Director Tom Belshe called last year’s proposal one that “effectively gets rid of single-family zoning and deregulates the standards for development.’’ He said the limits on set-back requirements would lead to neighbors “high-fiving from one window to the next between houses.’’

The starter home bill is just one of many that have been filed this year as Democrats and Republicans vow to enact legislation designed to address the state’s shortage of housing of all kinds. And more are in the works.

Those already filed include a measure that would allow churches to develop parts of their properties into apartments if some units are reserved for low-income tenants.

A similar measure introduced by a Democratic lawmaker passed the House last year but never made it out of the Senate. This year, it’s sponsored by Republican Rep. David Livingston of Peoria, who chairs the Appropriations Committee.

Two measures by Rep. John Gillette, R-Kingman, take aim at the housing problem from a different perspective.

One would require cities to accept any building material in a home if it is allowed in other construction. The other is squarely aimed at vacation rentals by reclassifying many of them for tax purposes as commercial properties.

Biasiucci said that measure would make it “a whole new ballgame’’ for big investors who now buy up homes to turn them into vacation rentals.

“You would hope that when you reclassify them from a residential property to an actual commercial business, that’s going to stop some of this stuff,’’ he said.

Sen. Catherine Miranda, D-Phoenix, has a measure designed to address homelessness by requiring every city over 75,000 in population to have enough shelter space for a quarter of the people living on their streets and to establish a judicial diversion program for homeless people. A new state grant program would help offset the cost, although the dollar amount is not specified.

Despite being in the minority party, Miranda said she thinks her proposal can get enough support to pass.

“There’s so many different layers, and it’s such a complex issue that each of us kind of grab a layer, a piece of this problem,’’ Miranda said.

“The last two years, I’ve been working on homelessness,’’ she said. “This effort here is homeless prevention, which will stop the madness that I’m seeing working with the current homelessness on the street.’’

Biasiucci said he’ll give it a look. Even if he can’t support her proposal other Republicans might, he said. “The whole point is, let’s start somewhere. Let’s get the conversation rolling,’’ he said.

The alternative of doing nothing is unacceptable, he said.

“We can’t get to a situation that’s happening now in Sedona,’’ he said. “Sedona’s solution was ‘we’re going to let you sleep in your car at the park as a place to live’ for the workers. That is absolutely insane.’’