Why Is Housing So Expensive in Phoenix? A Lot of It Starts at City Hall.

Michael Del Prete | Candidate, Phoenix City Council District 6 | 16 years in Arizona real estate

Why is housing so expensive in Phoenix? It's not just inflation or interest rates. A lot of it is local policy — the decisions that get made, or don't get made, at City Hall.

Here's how city decisions make it harder, and what we can do about it.

1. Building fees get passed straight to buyers.

When Phoenix raises the fees builders pay, that cost doesn't stay with the builder. It shows up in the price of the home, or the rent on the unit. In 2025 the city raised impact fees sharply in its high-growth areas, in some spots to $30,000 or more per new home.

Now, in most of District 6 those fees are low or zero, because our neighborhoods are established and the infrastructure is already in the ground. So I'm not going to stand here and tell you a $30,000 fee is landing on a condo in Biltmore. It isn't. But the instinct behind it is the thing to watch: when the city needs money, its first move is to load the cost onto new housing. That's the pattern that keeps affordability slipping.

I'm not calling to eliminate these fees. Infrastructure has to get paid for. But we need a smarter approach:

• Scale fees to the size of the home, so a starter home isn't charged like a mansion
• Delay collection until the home is actually occupied
• Reduce or waive fees for starter homes and ADUs

2. Slow permitting is a hidden tax, and buyers pay it.

This is the one nobody at City Hall talks about, and it's the one I understand best from the inside.

Every month a project sits waiting for approval, the builder is still paying. Still paying interest on the land loan. Still paying for insurance, for holding costs, for labor that's standing by. That money doesn't vanish. It gets baked into the final price of the home. A slow permit counter is a hidden tax, and the person who ends up paying it is the family trying to buy the house.

Faster isn't the same as looser. This isn't about cutting corners on safety. It's about making the process quick and predictable so the delay tax stops landing on buyers. We can:

• Pre-approve more infill and ADU plans so builders aren't starting from scratch every time
• Launch a transparent permit tracker so anyone can see where a project stands
• Set a 90-day approval target for housing projects and actually hold the city to it

3. We already have some good tools. We're not finishing the job.

Give the city credit where it's due. Phoenix started an ADU standard-plan library — free, pre-approved designs a homeowner can build without paying an architect to start over. That's a real step, and it's the right idea.

But it's half-built. The library is thin, mostly a handful of contest-winning designs. The site-plan approval still bottlenecks every project. And plenty of HOAs quietly block ADUs no matter what the city allows. So let's finish it: expand the plan library, cut the approval time, and make sure the rules the city passes actually reach the homeowner's backyard.

Same goes for land. This isn't about bulldozing neighborhoods or paving the desert. It's about being smart with what we already have:

• City-owned and underused lots
• Commercial zones that are ready to convert to housing
• Land near schools, churches, and transit corridors

My plan as your councilmember

• Build more homes that working families can actually afford
• Cut the delay tax without cutting a single safety corner
• Incentivize starter homes while protecting the character of our neighborhoods
• Launch a public Housing Scorecard so you can track progress, not just promises

Phoenix is growing fast. Let's not price our own kids, teachers, and first responders out of the city they serve. Let's build a Phoenix where people can afford to live, grow, and stay.

Head to DelPreteforPHX.com for updates and more on the campaign.

Paid for by Del Prete for Phoenix City Council District 6.