By Bob Christie
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- A Phoenix lawmaker is attempting to salvage at least part of his controversial plan to override local zoning rules in the name of affordable housing after it was overwhelmingly rejected because of opposition from cities and towns.
The move come after a bipartisan vote in the Arizona Senate this past week to quash the plan by Republican Sen. Steve Kaiser to require cities to allow everything from higher density housing and taller multi-family complexes to eliminating requirements for off-street parking. City lobbyists said these were decisions best left to locally elected city councils.
Also helping to doom the measure was the lack of any guarantee that the radical revamp of state laws that give cities the right to control zoning would actually lead to more affordable homes or apartments.
Kaiser said in an interview that some of the wide-ranging measure’s provisions are clearly dead, including one that said builders had the absolute right to convert existing commercial, mixed-use or multi-family property to much-taller and larger apartment units, and another that would allow developers to cram as many as six homes onto one lot.
``Obviously by-right was not helpful, so that's that won't be coming back,'' Kaiser told Capitol Media Services. ``And the small lots, people don't like that.''
The small lots were the part of the plan designed to kick-start the building of ``starter homes,'' entry-level homes affordable enough for first-time homebuyers.
Other parts of the measure, he said, will be revived.
That includes requiring cities to allow backyard casitas known as auxiliary housing units as long as they are not used as short-term rentals, allowing construction of duplexes and tri-plexes, and allowing manufactured housing to be used. Kaiser said they probably have enough support to make it through the Legislature.
And limiting design reviews and allowing boarding houses also will likely be revived, he said.
The plan was supported by developers and some housing advocates, and won the backing of some Democrats in the Senate.
``I think there are necessary tools in this bill that need to be implemented in order to really address the housing crisis that we are facing,'' said Sen. Anna Hernandez, D-Phoenix. ``And I think it will give us opportunities to build more diverse housing, more innovative and tailored to what some of our working families need or what some of our youth needs or some of our seniors.''
Other Democrats opposed the plan, including Sen. Priya Sundareshan, who said her city, Tucson, already has made a lot of progress on issues addressed in the measure, including allowing backyard housing units.
``And the problem that we see is that this pre-emptive approach might actually undo some of the efforts made there by overriding the regulations made to date and override potentially other initiatives that they have been taking in order to address the housing crisis,'' Sundareshan said.
The opposition was bipartisan, with Sen. John Kavanagh calling Kaiser’s plan all-around bad.
The Fountain Hills Republican called local zoning ``a sacred thing,'' and noted that people made decisions on where to make the biggest investment of their lives based on things like big lots -- and the assurance that a developer can’t buy a vacant nearby property and cram it with six tiny homes.
``Trust me friends, I am no stranger to pre-empting cities and towns,'' said Kavanagh.
``But I do draw a line at kneecapping,'' he said during the vote on SB1117, which failed 20-9. ``And this bill kneecaps local control. And local control is basically what our constituents want.''
Kaiser’s plan is premised on the contention that local zoning rules and “NIMBY-ism,” the not-in-my-backyard opposition from existing residents to new development, is a key reason Arizona has a major housing shortage.
But Nick Ponder, a lobbyist working with the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, called that a flawed argument at best.
He said cities do not control who buys and holds land, or when they decide to build on their properties. And he noted that there is a backlog of about 23,000 apartments waiting to be built in Maricopa County, some with permits and approvals dating back to 2018.
``There's parts of the process we control, there's others that we don't, but what we can control we want to improve upon,'' Ponder said. ``But the way that SB 1117 does it just is a no-go for our municipal residents.''
And he said local opposition is not the only reason some developments are denied.
Ponder also noted that cities have been hamstrung in addressing the housing shortage by laws backed by the state apartment association, builders and conservative groups like the Goldwater Institute, groups now pushing for the changes in Kaiser’s bill.
He said builders pushed legislation barring cities from collecting impact fees for things like the costs of extending water and sewer lines and paving streets, so new homes now are essentially subsidized by cities and towns.
For their part, apartment owners got lawmakers to bar cities from requiring 10% of new units be affordable. And Goldwater pushed a law mandating unregulated short-term rentals, which has led to conversions that limit available long-term housing and helped drive the current housing shortage.
And he noted that Goldwater is currently suing Phoenix for offering a tax incentive for a builder to incorporate affordable housing and donate to the state Housing Trust Fund, which finances low-income housing.
``So we're being attacked left and right on things that we try and do to make things affordable,'' Ponder said. ``And now the same entities who have attacked us left and right and taken away the tools are the ones who are saying now they have the solution to the problem.''
For his part, Kaiser said has no love for the League of Arizona Cities and Towns and their lobbyists.
The Phoenix lawmaker led a study committee over the fall and winter after a much more aggressive bill he sponsored failed last year. He said he crafted the current bill based on conclusions that cited over-regulation as a major hindrance to developing new housing.
Despite the League’s participation, he said they’ve fought the proposal tooth and nail.
``They've been terrible to work with this whole time,'' Kaiser said. He complained the League is offering its own amendment, one they didn't have the courtesy of informing him about after his bill failed.
``So this is how they operate,'' Kaser said. ``You know, they lie and then they also do subversive (expletive) like this where they just try and work around you. So I have zero respect for the League and how they operate.''
Ponder said the League indeed is crafting its own bill that would address some of the major issue while giving cities the right to choose which parts to implement.
Although still being crafted, it would require cities to take steps such as allowing auxiliary housing units -- if they were in backyards and not three or four stories tall, as he said Kaiser’s bill would allow. They also would allow for fewer regulations on off-street parking for some developments near public transit and approve higher density housing and incentives if affordable housing is included.
Other parts of the proposal would require cities to choose from a list of optional items like allowing single-room occupancies or duplexes or triplexes.
``The thing that I think is most important here is cities want to be part of the solution,'' Ponder said.