Why Did The U.S. Navy Kill Arizona’s Housing Bill?

When a controversial housing bill dies in a state legislature, you don’t expect to find the U.S. military holding the gun. But earlier this month, when Katie Hobbs became the first governor in recent memory to veto a major bipartisan bill to address the housing shortage, the Arizona Democrat pointed to the military’s opposition. The Arizona Starter Homes Act would have prevented cities with more than 70,000 residents from using home- and lot-size minimums to prohibit the construction of houses for first-time homebuyers. A few days before she announced her veto, Rear Admiral Brad Rosen, the commander of Navy Region Southwest, sent her a letter expressing vague concerns that the bill might fail to “protect areas in vicinity of military installations” and would instead promote “incompatible development.”

Rosen was speaking for all branches of the military; part of his job is to act as a regional environmental coordinator for the Defense Department, which involves working with state lawmakers and federal regulators to protect military interests. His worries about the starter-home bill, despite their lack of specificity, were apparently enough for Hobbs, who cited the Pentagon’s concerns at the top of her veto letter.

[Jerusalem Demsas: The next generation of NIMBYs]

The military’s intervention in Arizona housing reforms is symptomatic of a much bigger problem: Accommodating a growing population requires new housing. But if you want to build something in America, countless interest groups weigh in, and those who seek to block change have an asymmetrical advantage. Getting substantial amounts of homes built requires the proper alignment of political and economic interests. By contrast, stopping necessary change takes just one or two well-positioned groups. In many cases, those groups are outsiders—nonprofits, neighborhood organizations. But when opposition to housing reforms comes from inside the government, elected officials are even more inclined to sit up and listen.  

If the military is playing NIMBY, it’s not doing so at the commander in chief’s insistence. Just four days after Rosen sent his letter, President Joe Biden headed to Arizona and Nevada to tout his housing proposals. His administration has become more and more vocal about the harm that local zoning restrictions have done to the American housing market. The day after his Southwest tour, his Council of Economic Advisers put out a report calling for precisely the type of pro-supply measures that are included in the Arizona Starter Homes Act.

The military, to be sure, isn’t explicitly trying to undermine its leader. For years, the Defense Department has been concerned—and reasonably so—about what it describes as encroachment near its installations. The Government Accountability Office reported in 2016 that the Department of Defense has, since 1985, weighed in on local land-use-policy proposals that it contends could affect its bases’ ability to function. This makes intuitive sense: New skyscrapers could interfere with pilot-training operations. At Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington, night-fire training is restricted to just the two hours before 12 a.m. during part of the year; earlier in the evening, the sky isn’t dark enough—a problem exacerbated by the light that comes from encroaching development—while live fire after midnight can draw complaints from locals.

Caitlin Ostomel, a Navy spokesperson, told me that the Defense Department’s two major concerns involved the risk of plane crashes and potential noise impacts for would-be residents of nearby homes. She also argued that a helicopter pilot going through a mishap would be able to minimize damage if more greenspace were available. The logical flaw with this concern is that the Arizona legislation wouldn’t open up any new areas around military bases for residential development. All the measure would do is roll back lot- and home-size minimums in areas where localities have already allowed single-family homes. Where developers are allowed to build big houses on large lots, they will also be allowed to build starter homes.

When I asked how many crashes have happened in residential zones in Arizona, the spokesperson directed me to local bases, such as Luke Air Force Base, a large military installation near Phoenix. Officials there declined multiple requests for an interview.

[Read: The problem with ‘Why do people live in Phoenix?’]

The military came late to the debate about the Arizona Starter Homes Act, after a community member near Luke Air Force Base alerted Navy officials to the bill. Gaelle Esposito, a lobbyist for progressive nonprofits in Arizona who worked for passage of the legislation, told me she was “blindsided” by the Rosen letter. Representative Leo Biasiucci, the bill’s Republican sponsor, told me the legislature had already passed it when he first learned of the Navy’s objections. Had Arizona lawmakers known, they could have sought a compromise taking account of substantive military needs, as recent statewide housing-related legislation in Florida did. Biasiucci expressed frustration that Defense officials hadn’t reached out earlier.

Military officials weren’t the only public-sector interest group working to scuttle the Arizona bill. Esposito pointed me to a “misinformation campaign” by some local officials. Mayor Bob Morris of Cave Creek, a town of 5,000 that is 65,000 people away from being affected by the starter-homes bill and that has a median home value of more than $725,000, posted in a public Facebook group that the bill would promote multifamily housing and prohibit low-density housing. Neither claim is true. Craig McFarland, the mayor of Casa Grande, similarly posted on his public Facebook page that developers would be empowered to build apartments and other multifamily properties. Also not true. But that kind of scaremongering may have helped sink the bill. Hobbs’s veto letter cited local officials’ opposition.

Hobbs also cited an objection from the president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, which claimed that neighborhoods would be allowed to develop “without adequate consideration for public safety infrastructure.” This is despite the plain language of the bill, which reads that the provisions “do not supersede applicable building codes, fire codes or public health and safety regulations.” The union does not cite any research about fire deaths among slightly smaller single-family homes. The firefighters’ letter, like the Navy official’s letter, is similarly littered with coulds, mights, and potentials. The only thing the firefighters say with confidence is that they “vehemently oppose” the bill. Biasiucci told me the organization had not contacted him about its concerns.

The U.S. military, like many other organizations, does have good reasons to keep an eye on development. But to the extent that bases are concentrated in exurban and rural areas, Pentagon officials should be enthusiastic boosters of density in previously developed areas.

The military has also been worried about the effect of renewable-energy projects and transmission lines on military installations. But unlike with housing, Congress created a centralized clearinghouse to work with developers to address legitimate concerns. In the first five years of its existence, according to a Defense official, the clearinghouse reviewed 10,000 energy projects and only once were there irresolvable differences with a renewable-energy developer. Using a centralized body to set forth a specific, defensible standard for what development is appropriate near military bases would be far wiser than letting Pentagon officials veto good housing reforms.

A change from the status quo always feels risky. But as public agencies and employees protect their own turf, their calculations seldom take adequate notice of the risk inherent in not acting. The same day that Hobbs vetoed the bill, officials in Sedona voted to allow workers to sleep in their cars in a last-ditch effort to retain the wealthy vacation town’s workforce, given the lack of apartments and homes. Navy officials, firefighters, and many other interest groups may have legitimate concerns about what changing the current system might entail. But if Americans are sleeping in their cars, how could any alternative be worse?