Letter to the Editor: Support shown for SB 1118

This letter is in response to Arizona Housing Coalition’s Nicole Newhouse’s recent Arizona Voices piece explaining why her organization is opposed to Senate Bill 1118, which allows cities to exempt historic neighborhoods from middle housing requirements and limits demolitions of historic homes. The bill’s goal is to preserve our irreplaceable historic districts in cities across Arizona.

I support SB 1118 because it returns control to local communities to decide about encouraging more “middle housing” in historic districts. The original “middle housing” bill targeted historic areas, which in all Arizona cities occupy a small proportion of the total land base.