by Carly Moran
Increasing affordable housing in Arizona is the focus of the bipartisan Housing Supply Study Committee, which held its first meeting Tuesday at the state capitol.
The committee was created in order to, “review data on the scope of housing supply and access in Arizona, compile an overview of ways to address Arizona’s housing shortage and to mitigate its causes, and solicit ideas and opinions of industry and subject matter experts and the community on additional recommendations.”
Established by HB 2674, it includes members from a variety of relevant backgrounds. They include two from the state Senate, two from the state House, Arizona Department of Housing Director Tom Simplot, two representatives of the building industry, two city representatives, a trade association member, and a nonprofit housing advocacy group member.
The bill was signed by Gov. Doug Ducey on April 25, and was cosponsored by Rep. Steve Kaiser, R-Paradise Valley and Rep. Cesar Chavez, D-Phoenix.
The meeting was started by Joan Serviss, the executive director of the Arizona Housing Coalition.
“I think not only do we need to focus on the housing supply, which is a significant challenge, but we also need – and this is something that I hope to hold near and dear – is affordability,” she said.
Enabling municipalities to encourage more affordable housing
“What I really would like to talk about during the time that we’re here is how do we address the supply issue, but also how do we increase the tools that municipalities have at their disposal to ensure that we really can create more affordable and workforce housing opportunities,” Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said.
Though no solutions were settled on by the end of the inaugural meeting, the committee the key issues at hand.
Currently, the state of Arizona is 270,000 units short from being able to house all of its constituents.
“As we start to eliminate the barriers, we start to find that it’s not financing (which we have), if it’s not the inventory of able and capable developers, both for profit and no profit, which we have,” President of the Arizona Multihousing Association Thomas Simplot said. “It’s not either of those two, then as Joan indicated, a lot of structural barriers, whether those are embedded in zoning codes or perhaps in general plans that our cities enact and amend every 10 years, to me any of those and all of those should be on our agenda.”
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Carly Moran is a contributor to The Center Square.
Photo “César Chávez” by Arizona State Legislature. Photo “Steve Kaiser” by AZ Representative Steve Kaiser. Photo “Corey Woods” by Mayor Corey Woods. Photo “Joan Serviss” by Arizona Housing Coalition. Photo “Tom Simplot” by Arizona Department of Housing. Background Photo “Apartment Building” by Carol M. Highsmith.
