In 2024, Arizona’s “middle housing law,” House Bill 2721, passed with bipartisan support.
The law allows owners and developers to build duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes on single-family lots in cities with populations of more than 75,000.
Some residents, many of whom are older and live in established neighborhoods, decried the legislation, saying it would ruin neighborhood character.
This week, the Arizona House Rules Committee will hear House Bill 2375, which would carve out historic neighborhoods and exempt them from the requirement. While the proposal from Rep. Matt Gress has generated its own controversy, it, too, has support from both Democrats and Republicans.
Supporters of the original bill believed its adoption in zoning regulations across the entirety of the covered cities’ areas would help increase housing stock and improve affordability. Opponents said it would be detrimental to the aesthetics and historic character of many neighborhoods and incentivize higher rents in newly developed units. They also believed the new units would contribute to issues surrounding short-term rental properties.
Republican Gress’s exemption bill has Democratic co-sponsors and has received support from the opposition group Save Historic Arizona.
Opponents claim the new law won’t stop growth, and exempting historic neighborhoods will simply force growth elsewhere, increasing home prices and displacing more people in areas that are already facing housing cost inflation.
They add the historic neighborhoods were originally developed to accommodate working families, and the existing legislation is intended to help make housing more affordable for that exact demographic.
Still, supporters of the exemption proposal argue the brick and mortar building materials, along with the previous era’s design elements and other aesthetic components, in historic neighborhoods warrant preservation without allowing new, potentially incongruous units to be wedged in.
HB 2375 must still go through several hearings and be passed by both chambers of the Legislature before it would go to Gov. Katie Hobbs for approval. Hobbs has expressed her support for the measure. (Source)