The state-mandated  law that makes building duplexes, townhomes and other more affordable housing on existing lots easier will be implemented across Tucson, rather than confined to a smaller portion of the city.
In a 6-1 vote, the council said the middle housing change will encompass the city's whole 243 square-mile area, excluding areas such as the city of South Tucson, D-M and county-owned property as well as "rural residential areas."
Council member Miranda Schubert made the motion to implement the citywide option. "Folks don't like change, but we need to do things differently because we are facing unprecedented times," she said.
"What we do have a precedent for is middle housing ... There's a lot of different kinds of people in Tucson, and we just don't have a lot of different kinds of housing for them, everyone from college students to working professionals," she said.
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Councilwoman Selina Barajas said she wants to see residents stay and grow in Tucson, or return to the city as she did, "and middle housing is a step closer to achieve that."
"There's been some talk about unintended consequences, and to me, this is an argument against a more incremental approach, because inaction also leads to unintended consequences, and our housing emergency is real. It's here, it's right now, and without bold action, it's not going away," Barajas said. "Middle housing is one of the many tools we must pass. It won't solve everything, but we need multiple strategies in order to effectively address our emergency and meet our long-term housing needs."Â
The new state law requires cities with a population of at least 75,000 people to more easily allow for the development of duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and townhomes on all lots zoned for single-family use within one mile of their central business district. The state law goes into effect Jan. 1.
City staff had recommended that the middle housing area be closer to Tucson's central business district boundaries, roughly Prince Road on the north, Silverlake Road on the south, Country Club Road on the east and Silverbell Road on the west. A third option was even smaller.
The city council voted 6-1 Tuesday night to implement a state-mandated law to make it easier to build duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes across the entire city rather than a smaller area, as was recommended by staff.
Dahl, ahead of the vote for citywide implementation, made a substitute motion to have the City Council weigh a fourth proposal. He had asked staff for "the smallest possible" area, which encompassed the city's business improvement district plus one mile, but it failed by a 3-4 vote with Mayor Regina Romero and council members Lane Santa Cruz, Schubert and Barajas voting against it.
Dahl said he wouldn't support the citywide option or the staff-recommended option as a precaution for unintended consequences.
"If 60% of everybody who responded, most of the planning commission, if one or two people are opposing it because something horrible will happen in some neighborhood, I would like to know that before we do it citywide, simply because the state legislature won't let us take it back," Dahl said.
"I like middle housing, I've lived in middle housing. I would like to support it statewide, (but) I'm irritated as heck that this is being forced on us by the state legislature," Dahl said. "People who are not involved in zoning, who are don't oversee departments that do permitting, that aren't involved in building things, that just ideologically prefer that we deal with the housing issue through permitting stuff, rather than doing real things like funding public housing and giving us the tools like rent stabilization."
The new state law does not allow cities to mandate affordable housing, but city officials have said research shows that increasing housing stock positively impacts affordability.
Among the requirements of the , cities are prohibited from:
— Restricting middle housing to less than two stories;
— Setting permitting rules that are more restrictive than for single-family homes;
— Requiring owner-occupancy of any structure on the lot;
— Setting parking requirements.
Newer home subdivisions with established homeowner associations within any "middle housing" boundaries the city sets are exempt from the new state law.
In Phoenix, city leaders voted to allow up to four dwelling units per single-family lot within one mile of the downtown boundary and require that at least 20% of all new subdivisions of 10 continuous acres or more comply with the regulations.
Flagstaff, like Tucson, adopted middle housing citywide.
