Arizona Can Take Another Step Toward More Affordable Homes

Arizona’s housing affordability woes continue to challenge residents struggling to purchase a first home or cover their rent. Over the last seven years, the monthly cost of owning a home in Arizona jumped 78% and rents more than doubled. Thirteen percent of Phoenix-area households still spend at least half of their income on housing. And homelessness in Arizona has climbed 65% since 2019—well above the national increase of 40%—driven in large part by the lack of enough homes.

The state has, however, made real progress toward lowering barriers to homeownership. In recent legislative sessions, Arizona has expanded the ability to build backyard casitas; authorized duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes near business districts; and streamlined permitting. These meaningful reforms have already created more affordable housing options in Washington, Oregon, and other states. Now, after earning bipartisan support in the Senate, the House and governor have an opportunity to take another step forward by enacting S.B. 1431.

This bill takes two related steps toward reducing the cost of building a home in Arizona. First, it prevents local governments from imposing purely aesthetic requirements on new single-family homes and casitas—such as mandated roof pitches, required front porches, facades limited to brick or stone, specific exterior color palettes, and window-trim specifications. Second, it bars municipalities from requiring shared features or amenities—such as parks, common areas, or landscaping—that would make a homeowners association necessary to maintain them, and additional fees to support the association. None of these requirements make a home safe, well-built, or energy efficient. Those standards are set by the building code and are left fully intact by this bill.

On the other hand, these mandates do make homes more expensive for the people who buy them—typically first-time buyers and younger households for whom the difference between qualifying for a mortgage and being shut out of the market can be as little as a few thousand dollars.

How much do aesthetic mandates contribute to the growing inability of families to afford a home? Studies suggest that they add $10,000 to $25,000 to the price of a new home. That’s not a minor increase in price. For someone seeking a loan from the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Federal Housing Administration, that amount could be the entire down payment. And for a family in Maricopa County—where the average listing price of a home is approaching $500,000—it can be the difference between being able to buy a starter home and continuing to rent.

Aesthetic mandates can also trigger lengthy design review processes that slow permitting, with each month’s delay increasing the cost of building a home. And the current dizzying array of aesthetic mandates between localities creates a patchwork of regulations and requirements across the state. This forced customization drives up the cost of building homes, costs that are eventually passed on to homebuyers.

Critics of this legislation suggest that builders might pocket the accrued savings rather than pass them along to homebuyers. The Pew Charitable Trusts’ research finds this unlikely because in a competitive housing market with persistent demand, builders who reduce costs and price homes more accessibly will sell homes faster. For example, data from cities including Houston; Portland, Oregon; and Raleigh, North Carolina, show that streamlining building rules does lower prices, with simpler, smaller homes selling at discounts of $200,000 or more compared with nearby homes.

The targeted, bipartisan reform proposed in S.B. 1431 doesn’t stop cities from setting health and safety standards. It doesn’t apply to historic districts where certain aesthetic standards are required. It doesn’t even change zoning. What it does is remove a layer of government-imposed costs that make it harder to build starter homes that first-time buyers and working families can afford.

The Arizona Legislature and governor should work together to pass this sensible bill and sign it into law.

Tushar Kansal works on The Pew Charitable Trusts’ housing policy initiative.

This op-ed was first published in the Arizona Capitol Times on June 12, 2026.