More than one-third of households in Tucson are considered housing cost burdened.
Tucson’s mayor and city council voted this week to expand who is eligible for fee waivers to build affordable housing. The change is part of the city’s plan to encourage more construction of affordable units.
The ordinance makes for-profit companies eligible for fee waivers that the city previously only made available for nonprofits.
City Council Member Paul Cunningham said that will make builders more likely to use them.
"The prior iteration of the program, no one used," Cunningham said. "So by doing this, we think we'll be able to leverage some LIHTC funds and some other federal monies that will allow these affordable housing projects to move forward."
The vote came ahead of an April 1st deadline for federal funds connected to the program, and Cunningham said even though it’s tight, the ordinance should help get some projects moving.
"There were some projects kind of in the hopper. I know it's only a nine or ten day window, but if you've already kind of got your project scoped out, you should be able to make that work," Cunningham said.
The change brought Tucson’s policies closer to those in other Arizona cities, and Cunningham said that will hopefully make it a more competitive market for builders.
"It's really hard to say what will happen because every single one of our indicators and economic predictors were kind of caddywhompus in the last few years," Cunningham said.
He said that’s in part because of pandemic supply chain issues and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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