Journalists’ Roundtable: Arizona’s home construction moratorium and more

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another edition of Journalists’ Roundtable, where we discuss Arizona politics. This week, “Arizona Horizon” host Ted Simons was joined by Bob Christie of Capitol Media Services, Jim Small of Arizona Mirror, and Dennis Welch of CBS-5 and 3-TV.

This week’s topics included:

• New home construction moratorium
• GOP lawmakers plan DC trip
• BOS to appeal loss against Justin Heap
• Housing Dept. nominee clears preliminary hurdle
• Voucher reform fundraising

New home construction moratorium:

Bob Christie: “…three and a half years ago, the governor and the state department of water resources announced that the new model for the Phoenix active management area showed that there was going to be an overdraft. There was not going to be enough water to continue pumping and add new wells. Put in this new rule and says anybody who wants to build a new house…any developer who depends on groundwater in the Phoenix area will not be given certificates to allow them to do so.”

Jim Small: “It’s functionally impossible to hit that hundred-year assurance that you’re supposed to have, and so that sparks outrage, obviously from the home builders. Essentially, is the department violating or circumventing what’s called the administrative procedures act, which is the state law that kind of governs how state agencies have to craft, and then implement rules when they want to change them.”

Dennis Welch: “This is one of the more important issues I think around right now…housing has been a major issue here with prices soaring. Rent is soaring, people can’t afford houses, and there are big questions now about the water supply. So, I think about how this issue plays out, and how it’s dealt with, solved, or whatever…I think it’s going to be a very important one.”