Finding consensus among Arizona’s disparate groups on big ideas may seem like a fool’s errand.
However, in a recent Arizona Capitol Times Morning Scoop, local economist Jim Rounds and the Center for the Arizona of Future unlocked five areas where the vast majority of Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters seem to agree.
One of those areas is the persistently high cost of housing.
Rounds, a noted economist who has performed work for the Arizona Multihousing Association in the past, notes that about 30% of the state’s households are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
He found that if all Arizonans paid 30% of their income toward housing costs — the standard for housing affordability in America — it would mean an average of $8,400 a year back into the pockets of residents who would then likely spend the money in other areas, thereby boosting economic activity.
Policymakers, Rounds said, sometimes only have minimal impacts on housing costs. For instance, labor costs and materials cost are mostly out of the control of state and local officials.
However, zoning decisions, building codes, development impact fees, permit fees and other regulations have a significant impact on creating an affordable environment.
For example, requiring builders to adopt the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code, as Flagstaff is considering, has been shown to add as much as $31,000 to the price of a new home and take as many as 90 years for a home buyer to realize a payback on the added cost of the home.
Rounds also reported that wide swaths of voters of all persuasion agree on issues like child care access and affordability, post-secondary attainment and transportation infrastructure.
The report from Rounds notes that housing affordability impacts a wide array of society. For instance, high housing costs can make it difficult to attract and retain workers, which reduces productivity and competitiveness.
Housing affordability impacts everything from healthcare to education.
Rounds noted in his report that children in homes with housing insecurity have just a 43-52% high-school graduation rate. For those students that come from more stable homes, the graduation rate climbs to between 76-94%..
Rounds said his report is meant to start a conversation about ways to improve affordability, which the AMA continues to advocate for at the state Legislature and with local government leaders around Arizona.
