The townhouse takeover

Casita chaos … Ballot boosters … And trust me, bro, the crowd is huge.

Cities and towns across Arizona are scrambling to adhere to a new set of housing laws with varying degrees of enthusiasm, but at least one town is prepping to minimize the laws’ effects. 

A bipartisan group of legislators celebrated the passing of a pair of bills this year aimed at increasing Arizona’s much-needed housing stock. 

HB2720 makes it legal to build an accessory dwelling unit, more commonly known as a casita, and places uniform guidelines on how they have to be built. HB2721 is an attempt to increase middle housing options by making cities allow duplexes, triplexes and other multi-family units to be built within one mile of their central business districts.¹

The new laws apply to cities and towns with a population of more than 75,000 people, which means 17 of Arizona’s municipalities have to make sweeping changes to the zoning and development codes that define what can be built and where. 

Most of the municipalities we talked to said they’re focusing on conforming to the new ADU guidelines first — those changes have to be in place by Jan. 1 next year, while the multi-housing law takes effect on Jan. 1 of 2026. 

If they do nothing, they’ll have to allow casitas on every residential lot in their city.

Cities like Phoenix and Tucson already have ADU ordinances on the books that will take some tweaking to meet the new state guidelines. Tucson, for example, only allows one casita per residential lot, while the new law permits one attached and one detached tiny home. 

But places like Peoria that don’t permit ADUs will have to develop an ordinance allowing them. The League of Arizona Cities and Towns is coming up with draft rules to help out. 

The league has a powerful lobbying arm that got attempts at zoning reform measures killed last legislative session, but after a round of intense negotiations, it backed the middle housing bills this year but opposed forcing cities to permit ADUs.

Some localities still aren’t happy with the tamer version of housing reform laws, however, arguing they’ll lead to overdevelopment, and complaining that the law doesn’t bar homeowners from turning the new housing into Airbnbs to fill homeowners pockets instead of helping solve the housing crisis. 

But already, cities are attempting to mitigate the law by utilizing a provision to limit where duplexes and triplexes can go.

The law hinges on requiring multi-family units on lots already zoned for single-family houses within one mile of a “central business district,” which is usually a city’s downtown area. But before Aug. 6, Gilbert didn’t have a central business district. And without one, all of the town’s single-family-zoned lots would be subject to the new middle housing law. 

“We’re not able to kind of be strategic on where we limit or where we make that type of housing available,” without a central business district, intergovernmental relations director Rob Bohr told the town council at its Aug. 6 meeting. 

The town council designated the heritage district, the town’s downtown area that hosts the iconic Gilbert water tower, as its central business district, as the Gilbert Sun News’ Aparna Sekhar first reported. That designation means multi-family dwellings can go within a mile of it, per the new law. 

The area only has about 55 undeveloped lots out of about 9,000 total, according to Ashlee MacDonald, the town’s principal planner.  That means less than 1% of the area is open for development of multi-family units. 

But while they utilize their purview to limit the middle housing bill, town council members made clear how they feel about having to do so. 

“I completely disagree with the overreach of the big brains at the Legislature,” Councilmember Jim Torgeson said. 

Councilmember Chuck Bongiovanni made a point to clarify that even though there’s not a lot of empty parcels in the heritage district, homes that exist can be redeveloped into multi-home units. 

“Once again, thank you state Legislature,” he said.

Abortion is on the ballot: Arizonans will get to decide in November whether abortion should be a right after the Arizona Supreme Court nixed a last-minute challenge to the summary of the initiative, the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports. Democrats say the Arizona for Abortion Access Act (Prop 139) will drive voter turnout in the November elections, and the issue is everywhere at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Cronkite News’ Mia Osmonbekov reports.

What tangled webs we weave: Apache County Attorney Michael Whiting, along with his wife and one of his aides, Daryl Greer, are facing a long list of criminal charges, including misuse of public monies and harassment, FOX10’s Kenneth Wong and Kenzie Beach report. The allegations include harassing a man who was running against Superintendent Joy Whiting, the county attorney’s wife, and using money from the superintendent’s office to buy an $80,000 Ford Expedition. 

Lingering mystery: It’s still not clear why Gov. Katie Hobbs didn’t attend the massive Democratic rally for Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month in Glendale, the Republic’s Stacey Barchenger reports. At the time, Hobbs said she had a personal conflict. The Republic obtained her official schedule for Aug. 9, the day of the rally, and it showed a two-hour block in the evening without any details. Her spokesman said he wasn’t going to comment.

What are they up to?: A hedge fund that specializes in water spent $100 million to buy nearly 13,000 acres in La Paz County, Arizona Public Media’s Zachary Ziegler reports. A big concern for local officials is that the aquifer under the land purchased by Water Asset Management is designated as a transfer basin, which means the water can be sent elsewhere in the state.

If we had $100 million, we wouldn’t try some
weird water gambit. We’d plow it right back
into reporting. Until then, your subscriptions
are what keep us afloat.

Hot summer nights: Phoenix broke another heat record this summer, this time for nighttime temperatures, KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young reports. So far, the low temperature stayed above 90 degrees for 36 nights. This is also the first year that city officials offered overnight and evening hours at cooling centers for people trying to escape the heat. 

Just nice to see: Politics doesn’t have to be mean-spirited. Despite ending up almost dead last in the primary race for a seat on the Scottsdale City Council, Steve Casares only had good things to say about running, the Scottsdale Progress’ Tom Scanlon reports. Casares ran a congenial campaign, which might be a surprise to hear about a West Point graduate and combat veteran who served in Afghanistan. His takeaways from the campaign were that he had fun meeting his fellow citizens and learned a lot about his hometown. 

Passing the torch: Donald Trump’s new spokesperson trashed his old spokesperson after the old one, Arizonan Stephanie Grisham, announced at the DNC that she would vote for Kamala Harris, the Washington Post reports.

“Stephanie Grisham is a stone cold loser who clearly suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome and many other mental issues,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in an email, in response to her speech. 

What’s funnier than election conspiracist and pillow salesman Mike Lindell shaving his mustache so he can infiltrate the DNC? Watching a 12-year-old not give an inch when Lindell started spewing his election nonsense.

“So your source is ‘Trust me, bro?’” 

Also at the DNC, former President Barack Obama had a few great (but short) one-liners about Donald Trump.

1. The law also requires municipalities to allow middle housing on at least 20% of any new development of more than 10 contiguous acres.