Want More Affordable Housing? Let Arizona Cities Regulate Airbnb, Vacation Rentals

Tim Robustelli and Maresa Strano wrote an OpEd for The Arizona Republic on how Arizona's preemption law regarding the regulation of short-term rentals is exacerbating the state's affordable housing crunch amid COVID-19.

Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Mesa contained more than 8,200 active short-term listings at the time of writing, according to the data analytics firm AirDNA, and investors are known to flip entire apartment complexes into weekend rentals, removing desperately needed affordable housing options.

Maricopa County's affordable housing crunch has contributed to an eviction and foreclosure crisis that resulted in at least 46,000 families being put out on the street in 2018, according to New America, a D.C. think tank.

The economic crisis resulting from COVID-19 means that a quarter of Arizona adults expect someone in their household to have a loss in employment income in the next four weeks, and will likely push hundreds of thousands of new families into housing insecurity.

And yet, as local governments in the Valley of the Sun scramble to stabilize families and increase affordable housing options, they are being blocked by the state Legislature from implementing already identified remedies like regulating short-term vacation rentals. This type of state-level choke — in this case via SB 1350 — is called preemption, and it’s a national problem.

Preemption occurs when a higher level of government limits or removes a lower government’s authority to legislate on a certain issue. Recent history has shown that it’s difficult to counter preemption laws, but not impossible.

Read about strategies to undo Arizona's preemption law here.