The Arizona Legislature could, maybe, finally act on Arizona’s affordable housing crisis with a bipartisan compromise bill from Arizona Reps. Steve Kaiser and César Chávez that attempts to peel back some barriers to affordable housing.
House Bill 2674 declares housing affordability as a “matter of statewide concern,” which is legislative-speak for preempting local entities from regulating in ways that defy the state. In a broad sense, the state has mostly stayed out of housing beyond some specific laws that restrict cities from regulating the price of rental homes and some lackluster funding for affordable or emergency housing projects.
The bill offers both a Republican and Democratic approach to the problem by imposing a host of rules cramping cities’ abilities to regulate residential housing, while offering a generational investment in the Arizona Housing Trust Fund, which helps promote affordable housing development. Some Democrats are already grumbling about taking away power from cities, and Kaiser described it as a “caucus cutter” at a press conference yesterday.
While some policies, like rent control, are a complete non-starter in the Republican-led Legislature, this at least has a chance.
The lack of state action has left cities and towns to manage the affordable housing crisis in whatever manner they see fit. So we see one-off initiatives like the Tempe one we mentioned yesterday, and efforts by the City of Phoenix to entice landlords to rent to low-income tenants by giving them some additional money. And the federal COVID-19 relief packages infused some money into local rental markets, but didn’t remove barriers to accessing that money. It’s not working.
We’re in this position now because of a heap of problems: investors buying up homes to flip or turn into short-term rentals, an in-demand market that brings in more people than it can house, stagnant wages set by bosses that still see Phoenix as a cheap city. We’re probably missing some stuff here, but you get the idea. It’s a highly complex problem, and piecemeal approaches aren’t solving it.
Twitter avatar for @morganloewcbs5
Morgan Loew
@morganloewcbs5
It’s not just the housing shortage that is causing Phoenix’s huge rise in rent and home sale prices. @CodyLillich and I analyzed real estate data and found something else nobody’s talking about.
azfamily #Rent #inflation
Police, firefighters and teachers getting priced out of Arizona housing market
Pollack said the problem is that home-building did not keep up with the Valley’s growth in population.
azfamily.com
February 2nd 2022
29 Retweets57 Likes
It’s all, in short, a mess — the kind that both parties know affects their constituents. Some lawmakers want to find a path to address the problem, and other wannabe-politicians like Kari Lake create “housing” plans that are nothing more than criminalizing homelessness.
We expect to see pushback and more compromises if the Legislature actually intends to help on the housing affordability crisis. On a matter this significant, the filed bill is the starting point. You can expect members of both parties, cities, housing advocates, landlords and renters to try to put their mark on it.
So far, the bill got strong support from the Arizona Multihousing Association and the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona, which isn’t surprising. Now we want to see how everyone else reacts. At first brush, anything that further restricts cities — something our Legislature does as a pastime — will encounter criticism from the left and from local entities.
Twitter avatar for @NolanWilliamsAZ
Nolan Williams 💰🔋🛴
@NolanWilliamsAZ
This is the best bill in the session so far. If it passes in it’s current form, rent costs in Arizona will plummet and housing availability will soar.
Expect a full @YIMBYTempe writeup of the bill, but highlights include
-Upzoning
-Faster permitting
-No arbitrary design control
Joe Pitts @jpittsaz
This morning, Reps. @CesarChavezAZ (D) and Steve Kaiser (R) held a press conference about HB 2674, a bill that aims to stabilize housing costs & increase the supply of housing.
They acknowledged it would be a “caucus-cutter”; will require a bipartisan effort. @Western_Tribune https://t.co/yE7MQugxh9
February 2nd 2022
2 Retweets14 Likes
But if an eventual housing bill like this constitutes a true bipartisan compromise, everyone will find something to hate about it. But hopefully something to like, too.
In case you missed it yesterday, we want to hear your rent hike stories. If your rent went up and you couldn’t afford to move, or if you had to move but only found more expensive places, email us at rachel@arizonaagenda.com.
Let’s repeat this whole news cycle: People who work with Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel question whether she is still sober, months after her time in rehab facilities. As we reported at the time, Adel didn’t willingly tell the public about her struggles with addiction, and she asked for people’s understanding while her office didn’t often provide it to the people it prosecutes. But now, county leaders like Maricopa Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates say she’s missing from meetings and not involved on major legal issues, the Republic’s Robert Anglen reports. Adel said in a statement that she’s working on it. Also, she got COVID-19 in January, and “missed a few key meetings that I would have liked to attend in person.”
“I said to her, ‘I’ve got concerns. There have been concerns raised to me that you’ve been drinking again,'” Gates told the Republic. “She did not deny it.”
A fitting legacy: Veterans and Gold Star families will be able to go to national parks for free now that the Alexander Lofgren Veterans in Parks Act has been signed into law. Lofgren, who was a veteran and congressional staffer to U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, died last year in Death Valley during a hiking trip.
How many ways are there to say this is a bill roundup?: Not that many. This is a bill roundup.
A bill that would require more technical expertise and qualifications for Arizona Corporation Commission candidates
A set of bills that conservative Republic columnist Robert Robb thinks will make work even less tolerable for teachers
More types of hazing could be considered crimes under this bill
Basketballer Steve Nash opposes the bill that would require teachers to out their LGBTQ students
The pandemic grift: A company from Illinois that ran COVID-19 testing centers in the Valley closed down some of its sites after the company’s owners allegedly bought a bunch of luxury items and didn’t do a great job at actually testing for COVID-19, the Republic’s Rebekah Sanders and Grace Hauck report.
Twitter avatar for @DillonReedRose
Dillon Rosenblatt
@DillonReedRose
Image
Paul D Marsh @paulmarshforaz
The basic things we take for granted would not be possible without mining. Before you look at your cellphone or turn on your light switch, think about mining. As you drive into work and cross that bridge, think about mining. Mining Fuels the Future!
February 2nd 2022
16 Likes
Tough job: Get to know the City of Phoenix’s new director of the Office of Accountability and Transparency, Roger Smith, in this KTAR interview. The office is tasked for police oversight work like investigating complaints about officer misconduct and in-custody deaths. But don’t expect any investigations just yet: In a different part of Smith’s media tour, he told the Republic the office wouldn’t start any investigations for another six months.
Another tough job: KJZZ’s Kathy Ritchie goes inside long-term care facilities to understand how these homes, which were the deadliest places for COVID-19 especially early on, are coping now, two years into the pandemic.
Funny/not funny: While we were chuckling at House Speaker Rusty Bowers assigning Stop the Steal legislation to a dozen committees, one source noted that while the bill certainly can’t run the gauntlet of every House committee, the move opens the opportunity for a dozen committee chairs the opportunity to create their own circus by putting it up for a vote.
Twitter avatar for @ItalicizedAZ
ItalicizedConsulting
@ItalicizedAZ
AZLeg staff is amazing. THANK YOU to the House Clerk’s Office and their IT pros for creating this list of the bills that have been assigned to an unusually high number of House committees since 1991.
Image
Image
Image
Image
February 2nd 2022
8 Retweets26 Likes
Something Arizona Sen. Kelly Townsend doesn’t believe in: Seceding from the United States.
How to find the things you need: If you need N95 masks for free, the Republic has a list of where to find them around town. If you need a date for Valentine’s Day, please refer to a newspaper ad from the early 1900s.
Bon voyage: Two local journalists announced their departures on Wednesday. KJZZ’s Rocio Hernandez is leaving the station to go to the Nevada Independent in Las Vegas. PBS Newshour’s Casey Kuhn will move to Washington D.C. to continue working with the show as a digital video producer. Kuhn got a classic Arizona sendoff: a mean tweet from Arizona Sen. Wendy Rogers.
SOURCE: https://arizonaagenda.substack.com/p/the-daily-agenda-were-naive-enough?s=r
