City of Tucson Middle Housing Developments in Relation to HB2721

This two-part report analyzes the impact of Arizona HB 2721 on Tucson’s development regulations, interpreting the bill and testing multiple site-specific development options to provide the City with a range of strategies for public evaluation.

Researchers

Bill Mackey — Project Lead
Greg Veitch

Community Partners

Planning and Development Services Department, City of Tucson

Project Details

Budget: $42,500, funded by the City of Tucson Planning and Development Services Department

Where: Tucson, Arizona

When: 2024

Project Description

This two-part report investigates the relationship between the parameters set forth by State of Arizona HB 2721 and its impact on current development regulations in the Unified Development Code of the City of Tucson. HB 2721 is a bill signed into law in the State of Arizona mandating particular municipalities to allow residential housing up to 4 units in single family zoned properties with the same regulations and processes allowed for a single family home in a particular geographic area.

The first report outlined the existing issues within the City of Tucson that inhibit the development of "middle housing." The issues range from the after-effects of the 2008 housing crisis, inconsistent regulations between codes and financing for small scale development, development costs, community goals at odds with each other, and the impacts of existing middle housing in Tucson. These issues set the stage for the house bill.

The Drachman Institute then interpreted the house bill and identified the specific areas in the zoning code of the City of Tucson it will impact, as well as the potential geographic areas it could impact within the city. Specific neighborhoods were identified and used to test potential developments on actual properties. The neighborhoods were selected for their range in property dimensions, zoning, and if they had an alley at their back yard or not. A total of 4 different blocks were tested using existing and modified development regulations.

The Drachman Institute also investigated moving beyond the HB2721 recommended geographic area to areas along arterial and collector streets and city-wide. Conclusions include: current zoning code regulations limit development possibilities, fourplexes would be generally difficult to develop without tearing down existing structures, and reducing building setbacks allow for higher quality outdoor spaces and privacy.

During the investigation the Drachman Institute also found that zoning may be just one piece in the puzzle of creating more middle housing - time and money may play a very important factor. Based on development costs acquired through discussions with middle housing developers, it is currently very, very difficult to get a return on investment with this scale of development. We also noticed a majority, if not all, R-2 zoned properties within the geographic area do not have multi-family housing even though they are allowed to. Finally, when researching the existing neighborhoods there were many existing middle housing projects built prior to the most recent land use code that could not be built today.

This report was presented to Mayor and Council, and after staff determined the geographic area, the Drachman Institute was asked to further investigate the specific development regulations impacting middle housing development: minimum lot size, density, setbacks, landscaping, site access, and parking. We investigate further what parameters other communities use to regulate middle housing and compared to our findings in the first report. We also investigated minimum lot size possibilites, surveyed existing righ-of-way usage for potential parking areas, and developed potential landscaping regulations. Finally, we researched the impact of other middle housing regulation reforms and found middle housing development is existing neighborhoods tends to be gentle and gradual.