'I Got Issues': #1 Is Housing (video)
This is the first video in a three-part series on issues facing Tucson and many other US cities: housing, infrastructure and jobs.
Arizona’s affordable housing “crisis” has been a hot topic in the Legislature for years, although little of substance has been done — beyond passing a big tax credit for developers in 2021.
A few much-ballyhooed grand bipartisan deals were brokered by former Rep. Steve Kaiser, but those bills failed because they focused on more preemption of local government decisions and were opposed by the League of Cities and Towns.
The bipartisan Arizona Starter Homes Act, which was vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs in March 2024, died for the same reason.
Among other things, the “casita” bill would have made it easier for developers to pack second homes onto existing lots by eliminating setbacks and other local regulations on housing density.1 The City of Tucson negotiated and passed an auxiliary dwelling unit (ADU) ordinance last year. If state’s casita bill had been signed into law, that work on the local level would have been overturned. I agree with the Hobbs veto and the death of the Kaiser bills.
Preemption of local control by the Arizona Legislature has played a major role in creating Arizona’s housing crisis. Arizona needs less preemption, not more.
Often when people are elected to office they believe that new laws are needed to fix existing problems. Sometimes we need fewer laws … not more … because we have bad laws on the books2.
When Hobbs vetoed the casita bill she said, “Unfortunately, this expansive bill is a step too far and I know we can strike a better balance." Hobbs challenged the League and local leaders to come up with a better solution — rather than fighting tooth and nail against bills coming from the Legislature.
I’ve Got a List of Housing Strategies …
My list of affordable housing strategies starts with the repeal of existing laws preempting local ordinances on inclusionary zoning, rent control, annual caps on rent increase, deregulation of short term rentals and the worst preemption law in the country SB1487 (from 2015) which allows any Legislator to strike down a local law. Arizona also needs more transparency in leases and better tenant landlord laws. We could enact laws that help vulnerable seniors pay their property taxes, and we could set up sanctioned camping for the homeless and vehicle-dwelling nomads.
Ending preemption challenges cities and towns to innovate. If we shift our focus from helping developers to helping people, the housing innovation toolbox grows exponentially.
Video Transcript
Hello. My name is Pamela Powers. Today's video is about issues. You might have seen my previous video from April 4 in which I announce that I am running for the Ward 6 City Council seat previously held by Steve Kozachik.
Well, today I want to talk a little bit about some of the issues that are facing the city of Tucson and some of my ideas.
The number one issue, and I think a lot of us would agree on that, is housing.
And what I'd like to do is take a broader look at housing, for example. There are many strategies that cities and towns could use to ease the affordable housing situation, but these strategies have been preempted by the state legislature. And so there are bills that need to be repealed.
And so, yes, that's a high bar, but we have a Democratic governor, and we also have a very powerful ally in the League of Cities and Towns.
And so if we could get together and, you know, list these things and try to strategize on how to get them repealed, it would help all the cities and towns in the state.
So these are things like inclusionary zoning. So you might remember the city council used to talk about having a new development and a certain percentage of it would be low income [income] or affordable [housing]. Well, that process has been preempted by the state, and we can't do that anymore. So that should be brought back.
There's also things like rent control.
There's things like annual caps on rent increases.
For example, there are many apartment complexes in Phoenix, in particular where I was a renter [when I was a legislator], where they were churning the market. The apartment complexes were being bought and sold. And every time that they were bought and sold, the rents went up. Sometimes they went up 50%. Sometimes they doubled. I mean, they were significant rent increases.
Other states have like a 10% annual [cap on] rent increase. That is something that's more affordable. That's not going to make somebody have to move out of their apartment because the rent has gone up so much.
There's also things like regulation of short term rentals. Midtown in my neighborhood ... it's been overrun with short term rentals.
I take walks in the neighborhood quite often, and I can see how housing has changed in this neighborhood.
Houses that used to have families are now short term rentals. You can see the cars coming and going. The different dogs coming and going. The housing is vacant most of the time. This is changing our neighborhoods. It's really gutting Midtown.
And so this is something that needs to be regulated. And there are lots of people on both sides of the aisle who want to regulate short term rentals.
And so this is something I think that the City of Tucson needs to look at.
Another thing that has been proposed is 'truth and renting'. I had a truth in renting bill that I proposed twice in the legislature that we could probably do on the local level. And this says that leases need to have more transparency. There are hidden fees right now, and so renters need to know what they're getting into.
The rents are high, and when there are hidden fees and tricks in the leases, then they're more likely to get evicted because they can't afford what they've gotten themselves into.
So there's a lot of things that we can look at in the whole rental arena to keep people in their houses and try to prevent eviction.
You might notice a prevention theme.
I have worked in medicine and in public health for a very long time now, and you learn early on in those fields that prevention is better than treatment. It's better for the patient. It's better for the family. It's better for the community if the person stays healthy, than if they get injured or their lives fall apart through addiction or they end up being homeless. It's better to help them along the way than to try to help them put their lives back together after it's fallen apart.
And so I would like to look at preventing evictions, preventing foreclosures, preventing homelessness. What can we do before somebody's life falls apart?
And so I listed a few things about evictions. Regarding foreclosures, we have a lot of seniors in Tucson who are living in older homes. They might own these homes, and their areas are being gentrified, and so their property tax is going up.
And I believe the city and county might already have something like this -- but I know it's been proposed at the state -- is to have some sort of a fund to help seniors pay property tax and help them stay in their homes. I know that I am bombarded with a postcard and email and text offers to buy my house, and they're not good offers. Usually they're undervalued.
But the point is, sometimes seniors are pressured into taking those deals because they have a hard time paying the property tax [in addition to other bills when they live on fixed incomes]. And so this helps seniors stay in their current housing situation.
The other thing I think is we have to look at keeping people sheltered overall. We have a lot of homelessness in the State of Arizona.
It's bad in Tucson, but it is way worse in the City of Phoenix, and the hot time of year is coming.
And so, I think that we have to look at sanctioned camping. This is a thing that came up a very long time ago because we not only have homeless people in Tucson who are camping and living in washes and, you know, hiding in nooks and crannies here and there.
But we also have a lot of people who are living in cars and vans who are nomads, are just kind of passing through and might be sort of living on the edge financially because they're trying to make it on $1,000 a month of Social Security less and so we should have some sort of place for these people to be.
I mean, again, on my walks, I see people, you know, parked along the side of the road in the neighborhood. There was one day [that] I came around the corner and, you know, there were there was laundry hanging on the railing of the catchment basin. And I could tell by the laundry that it was a male and a female in this van, and they were there for a few days.
And I realized that they were there because they had car problems because eventually I saw the guy underneath fixing the tire. They got it fixed and then they moved along.
But wouldn't it be nice if we had a place with, you know, a shower and a toilet and some laundry [facilities] where people like that who are passing through and maybe down on their luck have a place to stay?
My vision is like, you know, big solar panel ramadas to give them some shade and and some place to plug in their phones. And then the ramada with the solar panels would run [power] a building that would have laundry, toilets, showers. Referrals ... if they want referrals. But I think that this would be a big boon for the homeless population and the nomads who are passing through town.
And it would also relieve the neighborhoods, you know, because I see a lot of it in my neighborhood. I see a lot of it all around town.
And I don't mean those people harm, but I think that we could help them out by having sanctioned camping.
So it's just another idea. Again, how can we keep people sheltered ... somehow ... and how can we help them along before their lives completely fall apart?
So those are my views on housing.
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The Arizona Agenda recently noted how many Arizona legislators are or were in real estate development — including Speaker of the House Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen. It’s no surprise that the affordable housing “fixes” always focus on developers — not renters, homeowners or the homeless.
A prime example of a bad law sitting on the books forever is Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban.
SB1487 is just so crazy bad, it is hard to believe.